What's nice, is that the bitterness levels are recorded. Well, for the pale beers. They didn't bother measuring it for the Brown Ales and Stouts. Which leads me to believe that they weren't very bitter.
Sweet Stout was brewed at 540 EBC. After blending with "reprocessed beer", i.e. ullage and other crap, the colour was 270 EBC. Something similar happened with Brown Ale, which was brewed at 220 EBC and then blended with reprocessed beer. In both cases, there must have been quite a high percentage of rubbish blended in to reduce the colour so much.
MxEwan's IPA, McEwan's Pale Ale and Younger's Pale Ale all look incredibly similar. The only difference being a slightly higher FG in McEwan Pale Ale. Scottish & Newcastle had another IPA, Younger's IPA, which was much stronger, 1042º. It was also sold as sold as 80/-, just to make things even more confusing.
XXPS was also sold as Scotch Bitter or, when in cask form, 70/-.
McEwan's Scotch Ale and Export look remarkably simialr, with just 1º difference in gravity a 1 IBU in bitterness. Irinically, it seems to have been Scotch Ale that was exported.
Talking of exports, McEwan's Strong Ale was exported to Jamaica and Canada. While Milk Stout was exported to Jamaica. The same beer was exported elsewhere as McEwan's Extra Stout.
I ssume that the Strong Ale is what is now sold as McEwan's Champion. A Scotch Ale of pretty decent strength, looking much like the ones brewed between the wars.
Double Century Ale was a Brown Ale of the strong type, which was introduced in 1949 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of William Younger. I wonder when it was discontinued?
| Scottish & Newcastle beers in 1996 | ||||||||
| Brewer | Beer | Style | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation | IBU | colour |
| Wm. Younger | Brown Ale | Brown Ale | 1030.5 | 1006.5 | 3.18 | 78.69% | 85 | |
| Wm. Younger | Double Century Ale | Brown Ale | 1053.0 | 1009.6 | 5.74 | 81.89% | 70 | |
| McEwan | IPA | IPA | 1030.5 | 1006.8 | 3.14 | 77.70% | 17 | 24 |
| McEwan | Pale Ale | Pale Ale | 1030.5 | 1009.1 | 2.83 | 70.16% | 17 | 48 |
| Wm. Younger | Pale Ale | Pale Ale | 1030.5 | 1006.8 | 3.14 | 77.70% | 17 | 24 |
| Wm. Younger | XXPS Btg | Pale Ale | 1036.5 | 1007.6 | 3.82 | 79.18% | 24 | 25 |
| McEwan | Export | Pale Ale | 1043.5 | 1009.2 | 4.54 | 78.85% | 27 | 25 |
| McEwan | Scotch Ale | Pale Ale | 1044.5 | 1010.2 | 4.54 | 77.08% | 26 | 26 |
| McEwan | Sweet Stout | Stout | 1030.5 | 1011.5 | 2.51 | 62.30% | 270 | |
| McEwan | Milk Stout | Stout | 1058.5 | 1020.0 | 5.09 | 65.81% | 270 | |
| McEwan | Strong Ale | Strong Ale | 1088.5 | 1022.0 | 8.80 | 75.14% | 30 | 85 |
| Source: | ||||||||
| Holyrood and Fountain beer specifications held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/8/1. | ||||||||
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7 comments:
I'm slightly obsessed with Scottish Export. Perhaps a subject for a mini video?
I don't recall ever seeing Double Century Ale in Scotland and am very surprised to hear that it was still being brewed in 1996. Perhaps it was an export product by then.
If you have more information on how ullage was handled, it would be really interesting to hear.
I'm kind of struggling to get my head around how it was done to produce a reasonably consistent and reliable product in the end. It's sort of like trying to imagine how a sausage maker that produced five types of sausages would collect leftovers, grind them all up, and somehow throw them back into the mix to produce a decent sausage. I might be possible, but it can't be easy.
The ullage was probably mostly the same beer.
Interesting, here in Montana I used to buy a McEwans Scotch Ale in the mid 1990s only it was 8% abv.
That would have been McEwans Strong Ale.
Scottish brewers often called the same beer Scotch Ale or Strong Ale, depending on the market.
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