A large percentage of brewers were still producing a Stout at the start of the 1970s. Mostly, these were pretty low gravity, sometimes as low as 1030º. Coupled with a low degree of attenuation, it left these beers with less than 3% ABV.
Let’s take a look at some of the Stouts being brewed at the time.
| UK Stout 1969 - 1973 | |||||||||
| Year | Brewer | Beer | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation | lbs hops/ qtr | hops lb/brl | colour |
| 1969 | Fremlin | Special Stout | 1039.2 | 1016.7 | 2.98 | 57.40% | 4.11 | 0.65 | |
| 1970 | Adnams | Double Stout | 1037.0 | 1009.0 | 3.70 | 75.68% | 5.54 | 0.86 | |
| 1973 | Whitbread | Mackeson | 1038.8 | 1010.0 | 3.81 | 74.23% | 6.31 | 1.01 | 300 |
| 1973 | Whitbread | Extra Stout | 1055.7 | 1013.7 | 5.56 | 75.40% | 6.31 | 1.45 | 375 |
| 1971 | Boddington | WSS | 1030.5 | 1009.0 | 2.84 | 70.49% | 5.75 | 0.74 | 300 |
| 1969 | Truman | Stout | 1030.7 | 1012.7 | 2.38 | 58.56% | 4.48 | 0.57 | |
| 1969 | Elgood | Stout | 1030.0 | 1011.1 | 2.50 | 63.07% | 3.56 | 0.48 | |
| Average | 1037.4 | 1011.7 | 3.40 | 67.83% | 5.15 | 0.82 | 325 | ||
| 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 | |||||||||
Quite a variation in gravity there. But the outlier – Extra Stout – differs from the others in being purely an export beer. All the others are in the 1030ºs.
The rates of attenuation are all over the place. The Whitbread and Adnams Stout have a normal 75%. (Though it should be borne in mind that the Mackeson in the table is before the addition of lactose.) While the Truman and Fremlin examples are both under 60%.
It’s no surprise, then, four of the seven examples are below 3% ABV. Truman’s is even under 2.5% ABV. Lovely and watery with no kick of alcohol. Yum.
There’s also quite a spread in the hopping rates. Ranging from 3.5 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt to almost 6.5 lbs. That’s quite a difference.
I'm trying to recall when Murphy's stout started to appear in pubs here. I'd guess it was the late eighties or early nineties. I know the Cork brewery tried to break the Guinness monopoly on draught stout here by supplying its beer to a few Manchester pubs in the late sixties before giving up on the idea.
ReplyDeleteNorthern Ireland would have been one of the last places to sell casked stout as part of an broken tradition in March 1973. https://youtu.be/ZKDwwVR5fd4?si=bo63vB9GDmg5UgYa
ReplyDeleteWas Mackeson’s ever sold on draught?
Oscar
These sub-3% beers look suspicious to me. I would assume they are all sweet bottled Ullage Stouts, could that be the case?
ReplyDeleteIf so, it’s interesting that consumers nonetheless knew the difference between these and Guinness without the aid of any OG or ABV on the labels, presumably by passing on of folk wisdom in pubs.
Note that in the late 1950s Mackeson was advertising itself as a strong stout (at 3.9%), which I suppose was necessary because people had (correctly) come to believe that most bottled stout was weak.
Oscar,
ReplyDeletethat was Porter, though, not Stout.
I'm pretty sure Mackeson was never sold on draught. Though it might have been in the early days when it was brewed in Hythe before WW I.
Ron while stout used to be stronger porter judging by a number of brewing books with porter being brewed ranging from late 19th century to early 20th century the ordinary porter was referred to as single stout.
DeletePint of plain actually means the weakest porter from a brewery which a number of Irish brewers do, brewing a weaker more session friendly stout/porter and a stronger by strength stout/porter think O’ Hara’s Dry Irish stout and Leann Folláin extra Irish stout 4.3 % ABV to 6 % ABV.
Oscar
Rob,
ReplyDeleteno, none of these are Ullage Stouts. At least not as far as I can tell from the brewing records. They could have mixed in returned beer later. But in those cases the colour of the brewed beer is usually ridiculously dark.
There was a draught version of Mackeson (Mackeson D) around 1964-65, but it wasn’t available for very long.
ReplyDeleteThanks John guess in both Britain and Ireland 70 years stout was mainly a bottled product
Delete