Fullers AK in WW I

Wringing the final drops of joy out of a topic is the way I operate.  No escaping from AK just yet.

I have multiple breweries' AKs from WW I and could turn out a nice big table. Except that it would be confusing, as gravities might change two or three times in a year. To show the changes to AK over the course of the war it makes more sense to concentrate on a single example. Having a shitload of their records, I've plumped for Fullers.

Surprisingly few changes occurred in the first half of the war, with the gravity on;y falling a couple of degrees. The fun started in the spring of 1917 when the German unrestricted U-boat campaign started to seriously threaten the UK's good supply. By spring the following year, the gravity had been reduced to a pathetic 1026º and a mere 2.73 ABV.

I got quite a shock when I assembled the table.Contrary to what you'd expect, the hopping rate per quarter (336 lbs) of malt increased during the war. This is the figure that takes the beer's gravity out of the equation. The rate per barrel was barely lower in 1920 than it had been in 1914, despite the OG being almost a third lower.

Speaking of that reduction in OG, let's see how it compares to the average for all beer brewed in the UK:

UK average OG 1914 - 1920
Year	OG
1914	1052.80
1915	1052.35
1916	1051.88
1917	1048.54
1918	1039.81
1919	1030.55
1920	1039.41
fall	25.36%
Source:
Brewers' Journal 1921, page 246.

Fullers AK fared worse than the average. In general, beers that started with a modest gravity seem to have been worst hit by the reduction in gravities. Porter, Mild Ale and Light Bitter were all hit hard.

Fullers AK in WW I
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
20th Nov	1914	1044.3	1009.1	4.65	79.38%	7.33	1.34
2nd Jul	1915	1044.5	1009.7	4.61	78.22%	7.84	1.42
1st Jun	1916	1043.9	1009.7	4.53	77.93%	8.20	1.54
3rd Nov	1916	1041.7	1005.8	4.74	86.04%	8.18	1.46
20th Jun	1917	1038.6	1006.4	4.27	83.51%	8.53	1.45
2nd Jan	1918	1035.5	1007.5	3.70	78.92%	9.72	2.24
11th Apr	1918	1026.1	1005.5	2.73	78.81%	9.99	1.10
7th Nov	1918	1025.7	1005.0	2.74	80.60%	9.45	1.09
19th Jun	1919	1028.2	1004.7	3.10	83.28%	9.72	1.14
11th Feb	1920	1030.6	1007.5	3.06	75.59%	9.80	1.21
fall		30.88%	18.18%	34.17%	4.77%	-33.70%	9.51%
Source:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery

Next time we'll be looking at the grists.