It’s an even simpler recipe than that of XXX. Just two types of English base malt and a single type of hops. Not quite a SMASH recipe, but not far off. That the hops were all relatively fresh East Kents (from the 1896 harvest) is a good indication that this was an expensive beer.
The cost is confirmed by the pricing included in the brewing record. XXXX cost £1.25 per barrel for ingredients and duty. While X cost a mere £0.52. Inevitably, this difference would have been reflected in the retail price.
| 1897 Hancock XXXX | ||
| pale malt | 18.50 lb | 100.00% |
| Goldings 120 mins | 2.50 oz | |
| Goldings 30 mins | 2.50 oz | |
| OG | 1080 | |
| FG | 1020 | |
| ABV | 7.94 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 75.00% | |
| IBU | 53 | |
| SRM | 6 | |
| Mash at | 155º F | |
| Sparge at | 175º F | |
| Boil time | 120 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 58º F | |
| Yeast | White Labs WLP099 Super High Gravity | |
I make the difference in duty just over a halfpenny per pint so are we looking at the more expensive beer costing 3/4d or a 1d more?
ReplyDelete"The same question marks apply here as with XXX. Was it a Strong Mild Ale or was it a Stock Ale? Without a price list or some other indication from another source, there’s no way I can arrive at a definitive answer."
ReplyDeleteI've noticed you often come up with dead ends about beers after what's in the brewing records, and I'm curious why there are such gaps in what the records show.
Did the records on how beers were aged, distributed, primed, and sold to customers just not get written down? If so, why not? Why would they be so much more meticulous about brewing records ? I realize they needed to keep gravity records for tax purposes, but that wouldn't account for all of the details on temperatures and timing.
Or if details were written down, why were they lost?
I'd think every time they made a change in a recipe that was sent out to 100 pubs there would be a lot of communications about how the pubs should handle it, what to tell customers who might comment on the change, what rules might be about returns. Did they simply leave it up to verbal communications? Did they not bother at all? Or did it just get thrown out?
Anonymous,
ReplyDeletebrewing records only record certain information. Some of it dictated by tax law, some of it presumably for the benefit of the brewers, so they could replicate what they did before.
At most breweries, the trade part of the business - dealing with pubs - was totally separate from the brewing part. Often to the frustration of brewers, who were annoyed that the beer they'd taken so much trouble to brew was messed up by publicans.
All the information you list would have been documented. Just not in brewing books. As brewing books were a sort of legal document, they weren't lightly thrown away. Whereas other records might be.
A book circular letters from Barclay Perkins to their customers has been preserved and is full of handy information.
That's really interesting about the split between the trade and brewing sides of the business. It sounds like a lot of what goes on in modern companies too. And it doesn't seem so surprising, come to think of it, that the trade side might be less serious about the record keeping.
ReplyDelete