Scottish Stout during WW II

If my information for pre-war Scottish Stout was limited, for the war itself it’s nigh on non-existent. With the one exception of William Younger, for whom I have data aplenty.

I have analyses from just two breweries, and all are from 1939.

Not sure that tells us much. I’ll move quickly on to William Younger.

Over the course of the war, DBS suffered multiple cuts to its gravity. Between 1939 and 1944 its OG fell from 1066º to 1051º - a reduction of almost 25%.

The surprise is in the hopping. In 1939, it was 6 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt. Which for Scotland was pretty high.

During the war, brewers were told to reduce their hopping rate various times. Having become totally dependent on domestically-grown hops, once the size of the harvest was known, brewers were told how many they could use in the coming year as a percentage of their pre-war use.

It’s unusual to see a hopping rate almost unchanged in by 1943. Having looked at the situation with other Younger beers, this wasn’t the case across the board. The reduction in other styles is greater. Even though Younger, who was hopping at a rate below 1 lb per standard barrel, were exempt from the cuts.

Don’t pay too much attention to the FGs in the table. Younger’s brewing records only list the cleansing gravity, not the racking gravity. The real FG would have been several degrees lower.

Scottish Stout during WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1939	Calder Alloa	Milk Stout	10	1052.5	1021	4.06	60.00%
1939	Younger, Wm.	Milk Stout (Monk Export Brand)		1065.8	1023.9	5.42	63.68%
1939	Younger, Wm.	Milk Stout	12	1065.5	1019	6.04	70.99%
Sources:
Thomas Usher Gravity Book held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TU/6/11.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.

 

William Younger DBS Btlg  1939 - 1944
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
14th Nov	1939	1066	1023	5.69	65.15%	6.06	1.59
11th Oct	1940	1061	1024	4.89	60.66%	6.06	1.45
27th Aug	1941	1060	1022.5	4.96	62.50%	5.45	1.32
4th Mar	1942	1056	1021.5	4.56	61.61%	5.48	1.25
31st Mar	1942	1053	1019	4.50	64.15%	5.48	1.22
5th May	1942	1051	1018	4.37	64.71%	5.50	1.17
27th Jan	1943	1053	1019	4.50	64.15%	5.83	1.26
2nd Nov	1943	1053	1017	4.76	67.92%	5.83	1.28
9th Nov	1943	1053	1019	4.50	64.15%	5.83	1.25
18th May	1944	1051	1021	3.97	58.82%	5.83	1.22
Source:
William Younger brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/2/76, WY/6/1/2/77, WY/6/1/2/78, WY/6/1/2/7 and WY/6/1/2/81.