Special Bitter malts in the 1970s

More about Bitter in the 1970s. I hope you're not getting bored by this stuff. But I am trying to write a book. It does take quite a lot of time and effort. In the vague chance that you might be interested, "Keg!" is currently just shy of 100,000 words and 313 pages.

Each of the four beers contains more than just the base pale malt. Though in the case of County Ale, it’s just enzymic malt. Which I can’t imagine had any impact on the flavour.

Two out of four contain crystal malt. See? Crystal malt wasn’t universally employed in any class of Bitter. I wonder if use of crystal malt was tied to home brewing? If you’re brewing with malt extract, as many home brewers did in the 1970s, steeping crystal malt is a way of adding an extra dimension to your Bitter.

Amber malt, as in Abbey Ale, seems like an odd choice. Especially as it wasn’t a malt which was much used at the time. No wonder the beer turned out so dark.

Who would have expected half the examples to contain wheat? Perhaps someone with knowledge of brewing practices at the time. I always assume its presence is for heading purposes.

What can I say about enzymic malt? Other than that it’s weird how many brewers persisted in using it. Was it really to help conversion?

An average malt content of 82% is fairly high. But that is a little less that the 85% of Best Bitter. 

Special Bitter malts 1969 - 1981
Year	Brewer	Beer	pale malt	crystal malt	amber malt	wheat malt	enzymic malt	total malt
1971	Shepherd Neame	Abbey Ale	61.15%	5.73%	5.73%	3.82%		76.43%
1981	Eldridge Pope	Royal Oak	76.57%	8.67%		5.98%		91.23%
1969	Truman	Ben Truman	86.67%					86.67%
1969	Fremlin	County Ale	70.36%				4.19%	74.54%
	Average							82.22%
Sources:
As in the table above.