Adnams grists in 1970

What exactly went into Adnams beers in 1970? Let’s see.

For most of the beers, the malt content was pretty high at 85% plus. The exceptions being the two Pale Ales. We’ll see why that was when we get to the sugars.

Wondering why Tally Ho has a base of Mild malt when none of the other beers do? It’s because that comes from a slightly earlier period when all the dark beers had a base of mild malt. They must have swapped to all pale malt sometime in the late 1960s. Enzymic malt is another ingredient that was dropped in the late 1960s.

You might be surprised to see that crystal malt is present in all the beers except the two Pale Ales. As I repeatedly say, the use of crystal malt in Bitters is of very recent origin. It’s only after WW II that it started to be employed with any frequency in Pale Ales. And there were breweries, such as Adnams, where it was never adopted.

Adnams was another brewery which used chocolate rather than black malt as the roast element in its Stout. They must have been one of the first to do so, starting just before WW I. 

Adnams grists in 1970
Beer	Style	pale malt	choc. Malt	crystal malt	MA malt	enzymic malt	total malt
XXX	Mild Ale	77.06%		8.26%			85.32%
LBA	Pale Ale	76.71%					76.71%
BB	Pale Ale	76.88%					76.88%
XXXX	Old Ale	77.06%		8.26%			85.32%
Double Stout	Stout	64.86%	8.11%	16.22%			89.19%
Tally Ho	Barley Wine			8.06%	75.20%	2.69%	85.95%
	Average						83.23%
Source:
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery.

Adnams beers in 1970

Let’s take a look at what Adnams were brewing when the decade kicked off. It wasn’t a massive range. And larger than it appears in the table. As they had a Brown Ale. Which was probably the Mild perhaps tweaked with primings.

Oh, and. I missed Tally Ho in the 1970s records. Easily done with a beer that’s only brewed a few times each year. The example in the table is from 1967.

There’s a better range of strengths than at some other regional breweries, with two beers over 1040º. And in Tally Ho they had one of the strongest beers sold on draught. Three other beers were also draught: XXX, BB and XXXX.

The bottled beers were LBA (Light Ale), BB (Pale Ale), XXXX (Old Ale), Double Stout, Tally Ho and Nut Brown Ale.

In the rates of attenuation, there’s a clear split between the pale and dark beers. With the former around 75% and the latter more like 65%. Was this deliberate? Probably. Other than the Stout. Which, in contrast to what you might expect of a 1970s English Stout, was reasonably well attenuated. So, not stupidly sweet.

Two hopping rates appear to have been employed: one, of about 4.5 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt, for XXX and XXXX. And another of 5.5 lbs per quarter for all the others. The Stout, rather surprisingly, topping the bunch. Though, in terms of hops per barrel, the stronger Tally Ho comes out as winner.

Adnams beers in 1970
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
XXX	Mild Ale	1031	1011	2.65	64.52%	4.41	0.58
LBA	Pale Ale	1032	1008	3.18	75.00%	5.15	0.76
BB	Pale Ale	1036	1008	3.70	77.78%	5.45	0.92
XXXX	Old Ale	1046	1015	4.10	67.39%	4.41	0.86
Double Stout	Stout	1037	1009	3.70	75.68%	5.54	0.86
Tally Ho	Barley Wine	1075	1028.5	6.15	62.00%	5.41	1.64
Siurce:
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery.

IPA Before WW II

IPA was popular as a beer name between the wars, if not exactly that precise an indicator of the beer it was attached to. More a marketing device than a well-defined style. Though you could argue that, with the proliferation of something-IPAs, that’s the case today, too.

The term must have had some resonance in London, where some breweries, such as Barclay Perkins, introduced an IPA in the 1920s or 1930s.

London
In the capital, IPA usually signified a bottled beer of a modest gravity. A precursor to 1950s Light Ale, in many ways.

The clear outlier in this set is from Barclay Perkins, which is a good bit stronger than all the others. I’m pretty sure that it cost 8d for a pint bottle, putting it in the price class above the others, which were 7d per pint beers.

Bottled beers usually cost 1d per pint more than draught versions. Making the 7d beers the equivalent strength as a 6d per pint draught beer.

Why did Barclay Perkins put their IPA in a more expensive class? Probably because they already had a 7d per pint bottled Pale Ale, XLK (Bottling). A beer which looks very similar to the other London IPAs. I told you this could get confusing.

The Hammerton and Whitbread examples are pretty highly attenuated. Combined with the fairly modest gravity, it must have resulted in very light beers. Which was probably the idea.

The colour of the two beers for which I have the data is on the pale side of the Bitter spectrum. But not too wackily pale.

Hammerton seem to have had two different beers which they sold as IPA, one around 1040º, the other not much over 1030º. I expect the watery version sold for 1d per pint bottle less. 

London IPA before WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1936	Barclay Perkins	IPA		1045	1010	4.55	77.78%	20
1930	Cannon	IPA	7	1034	1012	2.84	64.71%
1936	Hammerton	IPA	7	1040	1004.1	4.69	89.75%
1938	Hammerton	IPA		1031.4	1004.4	3.51	85.99%
1938	Hammerton	IPA	7	1038.6	1007.7	4.02	80.05%
1933	Whitbread	IPA	7	1037.7	1006	4.13	84.08%	23
		Average	7	1037.8	1007.4	3.96	80.39%	21.5
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/099.

This is an excerpt from my recently-released Blitzkrieg!, the definitive book on brewing during WW II.

Get your copy now!

The second volume contains the recipes. But not just that. There are also overviews of some of the breweries covered, showing their beers at the start and the end of the conflict.

Buy one now and be the envy of your friends!

Let's Brew - 1970 Adnams BB

For a change, here's a recipe I've just written for my upcoming book, "Keg!". A beer that is still around today, Adnams Bitter.

I’m assuming that “BB” stands for Best Bitter. Though Adnams didn’t have an Ordinary Bitter. While, in reality, this is Ordinary Bitter strength.

This was the beer that Adnams brewed by far the most of. And increasingly so, as the fortunes of Mild waned.

Uncomplicated, is one word you could use to describe the recipe. There’s just a single base malt. Accompanied by No. 1 invert. Then there was a tiny amount of caramel, in the form of Sucramel. And an amount of malt extract so small, I couldn’t be arsed to include it in the recipe.

Hulme, Epps and Day. That’s all I know about the hops. I assume they’re the names of the growers. Who, by the look of it, were all English. 

1970 Adnams BB
pale malt	5.75 lb	79.09%
No. 1 invert sugar	1.50 lb	20.63%
caramel 500 SRM	0.02 lb	0.28%
Fuggles 90 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1036
FG	1008
ABV	3.70
Apparent attenuation	77.78%
IBU	27
SRM	6
Mash at	144º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP025 Southwold

Draught beer in the 1970s (part two)

We're going to finish our look at the different draught systems in use in the 1970s.

Tank beer
This was often bright beer, but filled into cellar tanks rather casks. It was pretty popular for a while in the 1960s and 1970s. It later fell into disuse, partly because of problems keeping the cellar tanks clean.

Many of the Grundy tanks used in UK pub cellars ended up being used as fermenters in US craft breweries.

Hull Brewery caused much division in CAMRA ranks by having most of their beer served from ceramic cellar tanks. The beer was only rough filtered, but not pasteurised and served without CO2 pressure. For a while it was considered real ale, but in the 1980 Good Beer Guide they are dismissed with a simple “all beers are filtered”.

Keg beer
Soon after WW II, brewers started to become interested in keg beer. Mostly to remove the weak link in the chain between the brewer and drinkers: the landlord.  It was designed to be a beer that publicans couldn’t bugger up, either through incompetence or avarice.

The initial crop of keg beers were almost all Bitters. Usually billed as Best Bitters, though the gravities didn’t always live up to that claim. Later keg versions of Mild followed, but it was the Keg Bitters that brewers pushed.

Why were some brewers so keen on keg beer? Because they could charge more for it. When you look at the examples later in this section, you’ll see that keg beer sold at a premium. Keg beer might have cost marginally more to produce than cask, but nothing like as much as the price differential.

Of course, larger brewers were investing large sums in advertising their Keg Bitters. Who would have drunk them if they hadn’t? And that money needed to be recouped.

There was also a fair bit of keg Mild about. And in increasing amounts. Mostly due to the decline in Mild sales. When too little was being sold for cask to be viable, some brewers stretched out the life of the style by kegging it. Though that was only a stay of execution.

Lager, of course, was almost always sold in keg form. Other than the aforementioned experiments with cask Lager.

Finally, there was Stout. Mainly in the form of Guinness. Or maybe totally. There might have been some other keg Stouts. Possibly Murphy’s. 

Draught beers in the 1970s

The types of beer available on draught were pretty limited. Mild, Bitter and Lager were mostly about as much as you would find. In winter, a stronger beer might be available. Something like Young’s Winter Warmer or Adnams Old Ale. 

There were an increasing number of outlets for draught Guinness. And draught Lager, which up until the 1960s was mostly in bottled form, was becoming much more common in keg.

Cask beer
The tied house system was vital in making cask beer possible. The highly simplified logistics – straight from brewery to pub – massively reduce the risk of the beer getting fucked up by some idiot in the delivery chain.

The availability of cask beer was incredibly patchy. In parts of the Midlands and the North, such as Nottingham or Manchester it was almost universally available. In other locations, for example Glasgow or Middlesbrough, not a drop was to be found. It was all very much dependent on who owned the pobs.

In general, towns dominated Big Six pubs tended to have less cask available. But there were exceptions, such as Leeds, where Tetley owned the vast majority of pubs but served cask in almost all of them.

The types of beer available in cask form were pretty limited. Mild, Bitter and Old Ale. That was it. Unless you count attempts, which met with varying success, to brew a cask Lager.

If Frank Baillie is to be believed, quite a lot of cask beer was either kept with a blanket of CO2 or served on top pressure. And might well be dispensed through a beer engine. The only way you could be sure of getting pure cask, short of inspecting the cellar, was if it was served by gravity from a cask behind the bar.


Bright beer
One step down from cask was a type of brewery-conditioned beer much favoured by larger brewers in the Midlands and North.

It was rough filtered and artificially carbonated, but not pasteurised and served through electric pumps rather than top pressure. Much closer to cask than to keg, and lacking the bad features of the latter: over-pasteurisation and over-carbonation.

The difference between indifferently-kept cask and bright beer wasn’t great. And it could be difficult to tell the difference between the two when being served from the same electric pumps. Which is one of the reasons most brewers stopped selling cask through electric pumps and reverted to beer engines. They wanted to make clear it was cask beer.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1940 Adnams XXXX

While it might have been no surprise that weedy XX was able to hold onto its gravity, it’s more of a shock to see a beer of XXX’s strength unaffected.

It remains pretty much a double-strength version of XX. So the designation XXXX isn’t unwarranted. The recipe is still identical to that of XX, other than the quantity of water. Meaning the replacement of 1 quarter of No. 3 invert sugar with an extra quarter of base malt. Of which there are two types, both English.

The principal difference with XX, other than the quantity of water, was still the hopping rate: 7 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt, as opposed to 5 lbs. Making it quite heavily hopped for a dark beer. Especially one brewed out in the sticks like this.

Three types of English hops were used. Though not exactly the same three types as in XX. As with PA, the dry hopping is very heavy, though not quite so unexpected due to the higher gravity.

XXXX seems to have been discontinued in 1940 and only reappeared in 1949.

1940 Adnams XXXX
mild malt	10.25 lb	84.85%
crystal malt 80 L	0.50 lb	4.14%
amber malt	0.50 lb	4.14%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.75 lb	6.21%
caramel 2000 SRM	0.08 lb	0.66%
Fuggles 120 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1055
FG	1017.5
ABV	4.96
Apparent attenuation	68.18%
IBU	35
SRM	20
Mash at	147º F
After underlet	154º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	59.5º F
Yeast	WLP025 Southwold

 

This recipe is from my recently-released Blitzkrieg!, the definitive book on brewing during WW II.

Get your copy now!

The second volume contains the recipes. But not just that. There are also overviews of some of the breweries covered, showing their beers at the start and the end of the conflict.

Buy one now and be the envy of your friends!

 

UK Stout adjuncts 1969 - 1973

And here are the adjuncts. The final piece in the grist puzzle. A little unexpected, too.

How disgraceful! Only the Boddington and Truman versions contain roast barley, as a Stout should. Hadn’t the brewers read the style guidelines? (Certainly not.)

It’s interesting that, although there are four different adjuncts, all are types of barley. The roles they play aren’t all the same. The roast being for colour and flavour, the torrefied for head retention, the meal and flakes for economy.

I was surprised at the absence of maize amongst the adjuncts. That was the classic adjunct for the first half of the 20th century. Only disappearing during the two world wars, when it would have needed to be imported.

Which makes it a bit odd that in the 1970s, when there were considerable quantities of maize being grown in the UK, that brewers should eschew it in favour of barley. 

Neither Adnams nor Elgood used any adjuncts at all.

UK Stout adjuncts 1969 - 1973
Year	Brewer	Beer	roast barley	flaked barley	barley meal	torrefied barley	total adjuncts
1969	Fremlin	Special Stout		8.17%			8.17%
1970	Adnams	Double Stout					0.00%
1973	Whitbread	Mackeson				9.88%	9.88%
1973	Whitbread	Extra Stout				9.88%	9.88%
1971	Boddington	WSS	6.98%				6.98%
1969	Truman	Stout	9.43%		13.21%		22.64%
1969	Elgood	Stout					0.00%
	Average						8.22%
Sources:
Fremlin brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number U3555/2/F/Bx2/1/93.
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/141.
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/134.
Truman Ale book held by Derek Prentice.
Elgood brewing record held at the brewery.

Makeup

Been having a bit of a lazy day. Not written much. I've just been going through the manuscript slapping makeup on any ugly sentences I come across. And adding the odd bit, here and there.

Nothing to bother the word count much. That isn't the point. It's just a tidying exercise. I'll tackle the tougher tasks when I've more energy. Or inclination. 

One of the big upsides of self-publishing is that there are no deadlines.Other than the ones you make yourself. Of course, the risk then is that you'll never finish anything.

I should have published "Blitzkrieg!" at least a year before I did. I really can't explain why I didn't. Other than lethargy.

Blitzkrieg!, the definitive book on brewing during WW II.

Get your copy now!

The second volume contains the recipes. But not just that. There are also overviews of some of the breweries covered, showing their beers at the start and the end of the conflict.

Buy one now and be the envy of your friends!

UK Stout malts 1969 - 1973

"Keg!" is coming along quite nicely. I know you didn't ask. But I thought I'd tell you anyway. It's about 75% done. A few more interviews are needed, though. To fill out the memoir-like aspect of the book.

Time to have a look at the grists of the Stouts we looked at the other day.

The malt percentage is fairly high, averaging 85%. Every example contains at least too malts, most three. All have a pale malt base, other than Elgood’s, which has a combination of pale and mild.

There’s a fair amount of diversity in the malts employed. Though three – Fremlin, Whitbread and Boddington – have a backbone of pale, brown and chocolate malt. Which is much like a classic London Stout blend, except that the black malt has been replaced by chocolate malt.

I’m surprised that three brewers were including brown malt, and only one black. Chocolate malt was also pretty popular, turning up in the Stouts of four breweries. While crystal malt was favoured by three brewers.

The percentage of coloured malts varied considerably. Around 24% at Adnams, 15% at Fremlin, Whitbread and Boddington, but just 9.4% at Truman. Though we’ll see why that figure was so low when we get to the adjuncts. 

UK Stout malts 1969 - 1973
Year	Brewer	Beer	pale malt	brown malt	black malt	choc. Malt	crystal malt	mild malt	total malt
1969	Fremlin	Special Stout	68.66%	8.17%		8.17%			85.01%
1970	Adnams	Double Stout	64.86%			8.11%	16.22%		89.19%
1973	Whitbread	Mackeson	70.18%	4.70%		8.40%	3.71%		86.99%
1973	Whitbread	Extra Stout	70.18%	4.70%		8.40%	3.71%		86.99%
1971	Boddington	WSS	65.96%	7.61%		7.61%			81.18%
1969	Truman	Stout	64.15%				9.43%		73.58%
1969	Elgood	Stout	38.10%		4.76%			38.10%	80.95%
	Average								83.41%
Sources:
Fremlin brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number U3555/2/F/Bx2/1/93.
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/141.
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/134.
Truman Ale book held by Derek Prentice.
Elgood brewing record held at the brewery.

Clearing up

The Manual of British and Foreign Brewing Companies 1946

I was putting back some of the books I've used for "Keg!" back in their place on the bookshelf. The one I have downstairs.

The others crowd in Andrew's bed. His fault for briefly moving out. I turned his room into my library. For the first time ever my books are arranged in some sort of order. First by language. Then by type, sort of. And size, that's important for fitting them on the shelves. One problem: my access is limited to the hours that Andrew is awake. So (he happens to have just got up and it's 15:05) about 15:00 to 06:00.

That's one reason I have the books I'm most likely to reference downstairs. All the statistic-filled ones like the Brewer's Almanack.

While I was putting back a couple of books I'd used for "Keg!", I noticed these:

The Manual of British and Foreign Brewing Companies 1946 and  
Brewery Manual 1953-54. 

(Both books have an advert on the back cover for Dixon's Enzymic malt.)

Brewery Manual 1953-54

Have I ever used these? I can't remember. Don't tell Dolores, but, I have, in the past, bought quite a lot of books that I didn't necessarily expect to use straight away. A library of stuff that might come in handy. It usually does. Sometime. Most of it.

I hope I remembered to consult them when I wrote "Austerity!", my look at beer in postwar Britain. Full of the relentless detail my readers should expect by now. Lots of recipes, too. "It's dead good." Andrew said after I bribed him with a bottle of rum.

The image to the left drew my attention. Not for the Dixon's. But the Vinegar Malt. Never heard of that before. At least, not that I can remember. I am getting on. And my decadent lifestyle  is bound to catch up with me.

Anyone have any idea what vinegar malt might be? Other than the obvious that it was meant for malt vinegar. And is it still made?

Let's Brew - 1937 Barclay Perkins KK (bottling)

Marketed as No. 1 Southwarke Old Ale, this was a beer which was only sold in bottled format. I would say that that was to be expected, it being too strong for draught. However, Fullers Old Burton Extra was the same strength and that was only sold on draught. Mind you, that was made in tiny batches, mostly of fewer than 10 barrels.

It’s pretty typical of dark beers of the period (other than Porter and Stout) in containing very little in the way of coloured malt, just a little crystal. The bulk of the colour comes from the rather large quantity of caramel.

Slightly odd is the use of No. 2 invert. You’d expect No. 3 invert in this type of beer. There’s also a little malt extract, which is quite a rarity in Barclay Perkins beers. Only this and the strong version of IBS seem to have employed it.

The kettle hops were all English. Mid-Kent Fuggles from the 1936 harvest and two types of EK Goldings from 1935, one of which was described as “1st Grade”. Saaz from 1936 made up the dry hops. All of the hops had been cold stored. 

1937 Barclay Perkins KK (bottling)
pale malt	10.00 lb	69.57%
crystal malt 60 L	0.75 lb	5.22%
flaked maize	1.25 lb	8.70%
No. 2 invert sugar	2.00 lb	13.91%
malt extract	0.25 lb	1.74%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.125 lb	0.87%
Fuggles 150 mins	2.00 oz
Goldings 60 mins	2.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	2.00 oz
Saaz dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1069
FG	1022
ABV	6.22
Apparent attenuation	68.12%
IBU	69
SRM	18
Mash at	150º F
After underlet	153º F
Sparge at	164º F
Boil time	150 minutes
pitching temp	59º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

This recipe is from my recently-released Blitzkrieg!, the definitive book on brewing during WW II.

Get your copy now!

The second volume contains the recipes. But not just that. There are also overviews of some of the breweries covered, showing their beers at the start and the end of the conflict.

Buy one now and be the envy of your friends!

Money and time

The main frustration of my life was to never have both simultaneously.

When working, even the 27 days I had seemed like a shackle. I needed to fit as many public holidays and weekends into my travel plans to eke those days out. (Apologies to US residents.)

Now, I can travel whatever day I want. What does it matter to me if it's midweek? All my days are free. Brilliant, isn't it? Endless holidays.

Slight downside: my income is far lower. All my pensions nailed together fall far short of my last earnings.

And my earnings from writing? Not great. Quite a bit from flogging books when I speak. It's not like I'm likely to have a million dollar book deal, is it?

I expect to do less travelling in the next few years, purely on grounds of the expense. To call it frustrating doesn't do my feeling justice.

On the bright side, I have a book describing a period where money was short: "Austerity!". My look at brewing in the UK after WW II. 

If you want to help me out financially, you could invest in my new book on London Stout.It's dead good, even if I say so myself. It took me days to come up with the cover alone. Each of those white lines is the result of hours of work. That the angles of the two vertical lines are not identical is in no way a mistake and totally deliberate. Totally. Honestly.

Or in mi epic work on WW II is so big, it wouldn't fit in one book. So I gave up. No, not really. I split it into twp volumes.The first volume is all about the pubs, the breweries and how they brewed.

The second volume contains the recipes. But not just that. There are also overviews of some of the breweries covered, showing their beers at the start and the end of the conflict.

Buy one now and be the envy of your friends!