AK grists during WW II

I'm so glad I found a Greene King AK. It means I've something more than just a whole bunch of Shepherd Neame and Fullers versions.

It is the only one, too. Either they didn't brew it very often or it mostly came from their other brew house. Which reminds me - Henry still hasn't sent me the photos he took when we visited the brewery almost three years ago. He was responsible for snapping the records from the other brew house.

An awful lot of base malt and not much else is the short description. Only two beers contain any other malt: crystal in Greene King's version and black malt in one of Shepherd Neame's. The latter seems a little odd. 

So odd, that I've gone back and checked the brewing record. Sure enough, 33 lbs of black malt is clearly there. But bot with the3 rest of the malt. Which implies it may not have been used in the mash tun. It seems to turn up sporadically, mostly in parti-gyles which include SXX, the strongest of their Pale Ales. But not always. Maybe they just didn't always note it down.

Moving on to adjuncts,  there's some flaked rice in the Fullers examples. That's because they're both from the early war years. Had their AK survived a little longer, it, too, would have included flaked barley. 

If you recall their  pre-war versions, you'll know that Shepherd Neame brewed their Pale Ales from 100% malt. Well, and a tiny amount of malt extract. Which, I suppose, counts as malt, too. Their use if flaked barley in the later war years wasn't the brewery's choice. All brewers were compelled to use it.

AK grists during WW II
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	pale malt	crystal malt	black malt	flaked rice	flaked barley
23rd Jan	1940	Greene King	AK	91.76%	3.53%
8th May	1940	Fullers	AK	86.32%			12.33%
20th May	1940	Shepherd Neame	AK	99.67%
25th May	1941	Fullers	AK	92.97%			4.16%
4th Feb	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	86.90%				12.41%
18th Dec	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	87.42%				11.92%
21st Feb	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	85.01%		2.10%		11.59%
27th Nov	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	85.43%				13.91%
22nd Feb	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	85.43%				13.91%
7th May	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	84.87%				13.82%
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Greene King brewing record held at the brewery, document number AC93/1/14 .
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery.

Sugars up next.