Why? Because, just like XX, it contains a very large amount of No. 3 invert sugar. Which leaves it extremely dark for a Pale Ale: about the colour of modern Dark Mild. It’s all a bit weird. It is more heavily hopped than XX, 5 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt compared to 4.25 lbs. Not a huge amount more, but it is more.
The gravity is also a little higher than XX, but the two beers aren’t massively different. I just wish I could find a price for Hancock, which might make clearer exactly what their beers were marketed as.
Just two types of hops this time, half Worcester and half Kent, both from the 1887 season. Which leave it slightly more bitter than XX at 34 IBU compared to 27 IBU. Both calculated, of course.
| 1888 Hancock BB | ||
| pale malt | 5.75 lb | 62.16% |
| No. 3 invert sugar | 3.50 lb | 37.84% |
| Fuggles 90 mins | 1.00 oz | |
| Fuggles 60 mins | 1.00 oz | |
| Fuggles 30 mins | 1.00 oz | |
| Goldings dry hops | 0.50 oz | |
| OG | 1052.5 | |
| FG | 1013 | |
| ABV | 5.23 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 75.24% | |
| IBU | 34 | |
| SRM | 18 | |
| Mash at | 155º F | |
| Sparge at | 190º F | |
| Boil time | 90 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 59º F | |
| Yeast | White Labs WLP099 Super High Gravity | |
When I was a kid "pale ale" just meant bitter in a bottle, and bitter was usually mid-brown; it took a while to get used to the current usage, where "pale ale" denotes an ale that's pale! But as dark as a dark mild? That's pretty dark.
ReplyDeleteIn your work with brewers yave you come across a significant difference in flavor contributed by different types of dark sugar?
ReplyDeleteI would assume a beer made with 38% of one type of #3 might be very different from a different #3, but I've never run across a beer like that.