Cairnes grists in 1898

The grists are notable for a couple of reasons. First, there are no adjuncts of any description. Which seems to have been pretty typical of Irish brewing. By the 1890s, most English brewers were using an adjunct of some sort, usually flaked maize, but sometimes grits or flaked rice.

The bulk of all the grists is base pale malt. Made from either UK-grown or Middle Eastern barley. The only other type of malt employed was black malt. Obviously enough, in the two Stouts. Like most brewers outside London, those in Ireland dropped brown malt and relied on black malt for colour and roast flavour.

Talking of colour, all of the beers apart from the Pale Ale and IPA contained an amount of caramel, mostly pretty small. I assume that this was for colour correction.

Every beer contains sugar of some sort. Mostly in the form of No. 2 invert in the case of the Ales. Though Table Beer also includes a small quantity of No. 3 invert. Again, presumably for colour correction purposes.

The two Stouts contained a sugar called B.P.G.. I’ve no real idea why it was, but I’m guessing some sort of glucose. 

Cairnes grists in 1898
Beer	Style	OG	pale malt	black malt	No. 2 invert	No.3 invert	B. P. G.	caramel
TB	Table Beer	1045	88.77%		7.40%	3.70%		0.13%
Ale	Mild	1067	91.26%		8.69%			0.05%
E.I. Ale	Pale Ale	1055	91.53%		8.47%
IP Ale	IPA	1064	89.36%		10.64%
SS	Stout	1055	90.41%	7.00%			2.32%	0.28%
DS	Stout	1071	82.47%	6.30%			10.69%	0.55%
Source:
Cairnes brewing record held at the Guinness archives.