Let's Brew - 1925 Barclay Perkins Oatmeal Stout

Another beer making a reappearance was Oatmeal Stout. No surprise, as it was a popular kind of beer, at the time

Most brewers just threw a handful of oats into their standard Stout and labelled some of it as Oatmeal Stout. Barclay Perkins took a different approach. They brewed it separately, in a tiny batch (just over 24 barrels). So, did they use more oats? Of course, they didn’t. A mere 30 pounds.

There are a lot of ingredients. A bit of flaked maize here, a little crystal malt there. Roast barley for colour this time. The sugar is described as “Martineau BS”. I would have assumed that meant something like No. 4 invert. But that would make the beer way too dark. No. 3 gets it around the right colour.

Just four steps to the mash. Perhaps because of the small volume they didn’t bother with a second sparge.

Mash number	barrels	strike heat	mash heat	mins stood	tap heat
mash 1	9	152º F	147º F	30
underlet	2	183º F	151º F		145.5º F
mash 2	5	172º F		30	153.5º F
sparge	16	172º F			158º F

Only two hop types, both Mid-Kent, one from the 1923 harvest, the other from 1924. Both stored cold.

More Martineau BS was added as primings, raising effective the OG by 2º. I’ve added more No. 3 invert to account for this. 

1925 Barclay Perkins Oatmeal Stout
mild malt	5.50 lb	49.13%
brown malt	0.50 lb	4.47%
amber malt	1.25 lb	11.17%
crystal malt 60L	0.75 lb	6.70%
roast barley	1.00 lb	8.93%
flaked maize	0.50 lb	4.47%
flaked oats	0.02 lb	0.18%
No. 3 invert sugar	1.50 lb	13.40%
caramel 500 SRM	0.175 lb	1.56%
Fuggles 120 min	1.25 oz
Fuggles 60 min	1.25 oz
Fuggles 30 min	1.25 oz
OG	1053
FG	1017.5
ABV	4.70
Apparent attenuation	66.98%
IBU	44
SRM	32
Mash at	151º F
Sparge at	172º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	63.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

This recipeis one of 270-odd in my new book on London Stout. Get your copy now!