Sunday, 26 July 2026

Scottish Export/80/- sugars in the 1950s

A St. Bernard's Milk Stout label featuring a drawing of a St. Bernard dog with a bottle of beer hanging around its neck.
There's nop end to the 80/- fun. I'll be away in Canada when this is published. That's why I've been spinning so many posts from Eighty Bob. I think it's theown up some interesting stuff, mind.

Today we're looking at the sugars in 80/-. And there are way more of them than malts. Ten, in total. Seven of them just in Drybrough Export. Though, proportionally, Maclay's had the greatest quantity, at almost 19%.

Let's work left to right. Three of the beers contain malt extract. This was pretty common at the time. Usually, it was a way of getting some extra enzymes into the mash. Unlike the other sugars, which were added to the copper, while malt extract went into the mash tun.

All the beers contain invert of some sort. It's just not specified which type, in most cases. The stuff just called "invert" is probably No. 1 or No. 2 invert. Cane sugar is, I assume, unrefined cane sugar.

NExt we have a whole bunch of proprietary sugars: Hydrol, Avona, DSS, Fison and CWE. No real idea what that lot are. I'm surprised that a couple, Hydrol and Avona, appear in more than one beer.

The average sugar content is 15%. Though there's quite a bit of variation across the different breweries. 

Scottish Export/80/- sugars in the 1950s
Year Brewer Beer malt extract no. 1 sugar invert cane sugar Hydrol Avona DSS Fison CWE caramel total sugar
1957 Robert Younger 80/- 1.39%   6.94%   5.55%         0.07% 13.95%
1958 Wm Younger Export     4.48% 8.96%             13.43%
1958 Bernard Pale 1/4     7.27%     4.85%         12.12%
1957 Maclay Export 2.70% 10.81%         5.41%       18.92%
1956 Drybrough Export 2.16%   4.31%   2.16% 3.23%   2.16% 2.16%   16.17%
  Average                       14.92%
Sources:
Robert Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number RY/6/1/2.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/3/112.
T & J Bernard brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TJB6/1/1/1.
Maclay brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number M/6/1/1/35.
Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/7.

Take a look at my recent Youtube video on Eighty Shilling. 

 

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