Saturday 11 June 2022

Let's Brew - 1901 Boddington BB

Some brew house names I’ve never managed to work out. BB is a fairly common designation. It usually stands for Bitter Beer. Which, obviously, it doesn’t in this case, this being a Strong Ale. Your guess is as good as mine. I’m equally clueless about its replacement, the equally enigmatic CC.

At least its properly strong, weighing in at a similar gravity to a London KKK. It would be great to know if it was aged. My guess would be yes. Probably a few months in trade casks.

BB isn’t a complicated beer. Its grist is mostly pale malt. In the mash tun, 100% pale malt, as the black malt was added to the copper along with the sugar. There’s really nothing more to say. There’s not enough black malt to make the finished beer properly dark. Leaving it in the no man’s land between pale and dark.

Only four types of hops this time, three English and one Californian. None with a harvest date.

1901 Boddington BB
pale malt 17.25 lb 91.80%
black malt 0.04 lb 0.21%
No. 2 invert sugar 1.50 lb 7.98%
Cluster 165 mins 1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins 2.00 oz
Fuggles 30 mins 2.00 oz
Fuggles dry hops 0.50 oz
OG 1086
FG 1030
ABV 7.41
Apparent attenuation 65.12%
IBU 50
SRM 11
Mash at 154º F
Sparge at 165º F
Boil time 165 minutes
pitching temp 60º F
Yeast Wyeast 1318 London ale III (Boddingtons)



 

1 comment:

Des de Moor said...

Just a thought -- perhaps BB in this case was a pun on the Boddington logo, which borrows the busy bees from the crest of the Manchester coat of arms?