Thursday 16 May 2024

Young's grists in 1932

Let’s take a look inside those beers. Remembering that pretty much everything was parti-gyled, other than PA. Which was only sometimes parti-gyled with PAB.

Note that the majority of the base malt for everything but the Pale Ales. In the case of the Strong Ales, this was because they were parti-gyled with Mild. Most beers also had some normal pale malt, made from Californian-grown barley.

Crystal malt crops up in everything except the Pale Ales. Which is about what I would expect. Milds and Porters are, after all, the types of beer for which this type of malt was originally developed. 

The Pale Ales contained a majority off PA (pale ale) malt. The best and palest type of pale malt. The Pale Ales also contain a small amount of enzymic malt. Presumably, for pH adjustment. Not sure I really understand why it’s only included for the Pale Ales.

The Porter and Stout contain five malts: pale, mild, black, amber and crystal. Notably, there’s no brown malt. Which, wasn’t usual by this point in Stouts brewed in most of the UK. Though was still pretty standard in London.

Overall, at 85% to 90%, the total malt content is quite high. Probably because no adjuncts were used, just malt and sugar. 

Young's grists in 1932
Beer Style pale malt PA malt Mild malt enzymic malt black malt amber malt crystal malt total malt
A Mild 16.82%   64.86%       7.21% 88.89%
X Mild 22.49%   58.48%       9.00% 89.97%
XXX Strong Ale     78.80%       7.39% 86.19%
XXXX Strong Ale     78.80%       7.39% 86.19%
PAB Pale Ale 27.86% 54.64%   3.21%       85.71%
PA Pale Ale 27.86% 54.64%   3.21%       85.71%
P Porter     58.44%   7.79% 9.74% 5.84% 81.82%
S Stout     58.44%   7.79% 9.74% 5.84% 81.82%
Source:
Young's brewing record held at Battersea Library, document number YO/RE/1/1.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If the enzymic malt was for used pH adjustment it would make sense that it was only used in the pale ales since all that crystal malt would have lowered the pH to a sufficient level in the other beers.