I'm feeling really energised by all the new information that's been flooding over me. The last two weeks I've been happily wallowing in it. And I haven't even got to the 1970 Brewers' Guardian six-page Lager special.
Time to have a look at what went into 1970s Lager. Only three examples, but from quite an interesting range of brewers. Big Six (Drybrough), national (Truman) and small (Elgood). As Truman was still independent in 1969.
Typical of the era, is such a small brewer as Elgood, who only owned 65 pubs, brewing their own Lager. Many brewers wanted to be the source of all the draught beer in their tied houses. Making producing small quantities of Lager totally logical. Not many still bother (other than Sam Smith), serving instead a national or international brand.
At first glance, all three beers look very similar: OG 1034º. 3.4% ABV, 75% attenuation. Which was about standard for a 1970s Lager.
The hopping and colour are another matter. Elgood’s beer is far more heavily hopped than the other two. Both of which have only had a few hops waved at them’ Leaving them with pathetically low bitterness levels.
In terms of colour, it’s Truman’s beer that stands out. It’s a good bit darker than the others and isn’t that much paler than Truman’s standard-strength Bitter, which was 21. Was London Lager deliberately darker than most Lagers? Or was that just an accident?
| Lager 1969 - 1975 | ||||||||||
| Year | Brewer | Beer | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation | lbs hops/ qtr | hops lb/brl | colour | IBU |
| 1970 | Drybrough | Continental | 1032.8 | 3.18 | 0.41 | 12 | 14 | |||
| 1975 | Elgood | Lager | 1034.3 | 1008.9 | 3.37 | 74.19% | 5.22 | 0.68 | 10 | 20 |
| 1969 | Truman | London Lager | 1034.6 | 1008.9 | 3.41 | 74.40% | 2.30 | 0.36 | 16 | 11.5 |
| Average | 1033.9 | 1008.9 | 3.39 | 74.30% | 3.57 | 0.49 | 12.7 | 15.2 | ||
| Sources: | ||||||||||
| Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/9. | ||||||||||
| Elgood brewing record held at the brewery. | ||||||||||
| Truman brewing record held by Derek Prentice. | ||||||||||
| Note: | ||||||||||
| Colour values marked with * were taken from brewery sources rather than calculated. | ||||||||||
There seems to be a recent small increase in breweries doing their own lagers. Robinsons launched Bruh a few years ago, although seem to have replaced it with Pilsner Unfiltered. They also have a Helles.
ReplyDeleteFullers also have Frontier lager. Apparently they use their normal ale yeast for it. Holts have three lagers, JW Lees a couple too.
Of course, unlike the 1970s, most of them continue to have the big brands on their bars though. I mean, how can a pub in 2024 NOT have Madri on its bar?
Porterhouse makes its own lager.
DeleteOscar
Surprised to see Sam Smiths are doing three different draught lagers these days. I thought they used to do their own weissbier (not the wheat beer) which they served in the proper grannies rose vases as well but it's not listed on their website. Did I imagine that?
ReplyDeleteNot a weissbeer, not even back in the Ayinger licence brewing days.
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