I made a flying visit to Glasgow this week. Obviously, to drop by the Scottish Brewing Archive. But also for frequent flyer reasons. As it looked like I was going to end 12 months just short of retaining my gold status with KLM. To make sure of qualifying, I've arranged a couple of trips to the UK to visit archives.
I'd already photographed a lot of the brewing records. But there was still plenty to keep me occupied for a day. Some of it was just filling in some gaps in William Younger and Thomas Usher records. There was some totally new stuff, though. Like Meiklejohn, Belhaven and Binnie. And sort of Lorimer & Clark. Because I'd never looked at their records in the archive before. But had photographed one of their books in the Caledonian brewery a few years back. Just as well I did, because they couldn't find it in the archive.
I was particularly interested in looking at the records of Belhaven. As there are some brewing books from the late 19th century. The topic of the book I'm currently working on. Unfortunately, the relevant book is in poor condition. Too poor for me to look at it.
However, there was a folder of loose sheets. Which seem to be a transcript of at least part of that book. But which had been weirdly miscatalogued. The dates as in the format dd.mm.yy. And they's assumed that the years were 1971 and 1983. While it's actually 1871 and 1883.
The transcripts are dead handy. Containing most of the information I need. There are a couple of things missing. I can live with that.
Here's an example:
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10 comments:
So they were using litres/deg kg in the 19th century?
I don't think so. Whoever transcribed the records has converted some things to metric.
I'd be interested in any other details on the Glasgow trip if you happened to take photos.
Growing up in Newcastle upon Tyne, our equivalent of Southern Mild, "Scotch" was basically McEwan's Scotch north of the Tyne in the "blue star" pubs and Lorimer's Scotch south of the Tyne in the Vaux pubs. With Fed Ordinary in the clubs.
I've often wondered whether the Lorimer's Scotch was all trucked down from Edinburgh or whether it was also brewed in Sunderland, and if so did the recipes differ? If you come across anything in the Lorimers records that would be very interesting.
I really liked the Lorimers, it was a little sweeter and more "mellow" than the McEwans to my taste and I'd often walk over the High Level Bridge to drink in Gateshead. .
Makes sense as time goes on fewer and fewer people will be able to understand non-metric measures.
Oscar
Aren’t there some ales branded as 60 shilling ales that are effectively mild ales?
Oscar
Oscar my recollection was that the Scotch ales were in the 70/- category, with stronger beers like Newcastle Exhibition and Vaux Samson in the 80/- range.
Below that the last hanger on in Newcastle was tank "IPA" which was dead weak and more of a 60/-.
Long gone.
When McEwans brought out their 80/- on hand pump when CAMRA got big, it was in the same price and price band as Newcastle Exhibition with the Scotch below that.
Oscar if you scroll down the page in this link you'll see a list of pub beers at the time with Scotch as the 70/-.
Typical range for the era.
https://www.beeretseq.com/brewing-over-time-and-tyne/
Thanks.
Oscar
Except Americans, who think the whole world still uses Imperial measures, when it's just them, Liberia and Myanmar.
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