Best of Show

It’s an early start. I rise at 6:45. And go upstairs for breakfast.

The good news: they have bacon. And mango juice. A win-win. I slurp down coffee and mango juice with my food. I have fruit for my pudding.

I remember to send the family a snap of the glorious scrambled egg and bacon. And a second of my fruit pudding.

The family’s response is rather dispiriting.

“Why do you just send photos of boring plates of food?” Alexei messages me.

“You find my breakfasts boring?”

“Yes, it’s just the same scrambled egg and bacon.”

“That’s not true. Most days it’s been scrambled egg and cheese.”

“That’s even more boring. Just yellow stuff.”

“Excuse me.”

“Send some more interesting photos.”

“OK. I’ll send you some photos of buildings.”

“That’s not much better. Isn’t it autumn down there? Can’t you take pictures of that?”

“The trees haven’t started to change colour yet. And I’m in the middle of the city.”

“You always have an excuse.”

“It’s called a reason>”

“Yeah, whatever.”

The view from the breakfast room is pretty spectacular. That’s what you get for being on the twelfth floor. In the background, behind the high rises of the city, lurk the snow-topped Andes. 

I send my family a photo of the view. Maybe that’ll stop the fuckers complaining.

I get outside around 8:00. A few judges are chatting there. But no-one is going anywhere. It's pushing 9:00 when we get to the judging site. Where they aren't ready. Again. Partly because the local judges are all stuck in traffic. You have to get used to things starting late when you’re in South America.

It's 10:15 by the tine judging kicks off. We have four beers left over from yesterday: Three Robust Porters and one Old Ale.

Once we've got those out of the way, it's time for some homebrew judging. Weirdly, none of the homebrew beers have bad faults. Unlike quite a few of the professional beers. A couple of the Stouts are really rather good. Judging is full of surprises.

We're done by 12:45. Nothing more to do until lunch at 14:00. Which is why I'm writing this. Got to keep myself occupied. I wouldn’t like to get bored.

In the meantime, I'm shifting quite a few books. Which will please Dolores. With any luck, I'll sell all of the ones I've brought.

Lunch is a steak again. Quite a small one this time. But enough for me. I have a fascinating chat with Hernán Testa, the Argentinian hops bloke while I’m eating. And Michael Helzer, an American. Two pretty engaging and informed conversation partners.

In the afternoon, I'm judging the Best of Show. We have to wait quite a while for the stewards to sort out the beers. But I’ve had worse. I try to keep positive. No matter what my family say.

“You’re so negative, Dad.”

“Just realistic.”

“Cynical, more like.”

I’ve had some bad experiences with judging BOS in the past. Hopefully this won’t be another. 

There are five of us. And 29 beers. Which is quite a lot. Nothing I judged earlier, as we didn't award any gold medals on my table. The table is large but there’s only just about room for all the beers.

There are some excellent ones, which makes the process more difficult. Luckily, there are no opinionated twats on the panel. And we can come to an agreement on the medal winners reasonably quickly. Without any unpleasantness.

I send the family a snap of the table full of beers. It isn’t a plate of food and it isn’t all yellow. Let’s see them complain about that.

In the evening there's a pub crawl, finishing at Intrinsical. But I'm feeling totally knacked and just go back to the hotel. Only venturing out to visit the supermarket for some milk, bread and cheese. Even that 100 metre walk is a struggle. I’m so fucking exhausted.

I send the family a picture of the spirits shelves in the supermarket. Specifically, the Havana Club. I know Andrew will enjoy that.

“Looks just like how I remember it.” He replies.

He’s so sweet.

I watch some stuff on Ziggo and sip my hotel whisky. Before turning in pretty early. A good long rest is what I need. As I’ll be giving a talk tomorrow. I need to be at my best for that.

At least it won’t be an early start.



Disclaimer: Copa ACI paid for my accommodation, some meals and some beer. 

  

You can fins a video report of my trip here: 

Let's Brew - 1960 Youngs PAB

PAB is the lower-strength Bitter that Youngs introduced in the interwar period. With a gravity of 1039º. Obviously, WW II knocked down the gravity somewhat.

Given the rather low gravity, this is more like a Light Ale, or a Boy’s Bitter, rather than an Ordinary Bitter. Looking back at the brewing records, it looks like it was renamed Light Ale in the 1980s. I assume this was a bottled beer, as it doesn’t appear in the Good Beer Guide.

The recipe is pretty much classic English Pale Ale. Consisting of pale malt, flaked maize and sugar, With the latter in three forms: malt extract, No. 1 invert and caramel. 

Not that the boil, at 120 minutes, is much longer than in the 1990s. Presumably, it was shortened to save energy.

There were two types of hops, both English and both from the 1959 harvest.
 

1960 Youngs PAB
pale malt	5.500 lb	79.05%
flaked maize	0.876 lb	12.59%
pale malt extract	0.25 lb	3.59%
No. 1 invert sugar	0.33 lb	4.74%
caramel 500 SRM	0.002 lb	0.03%
Fuggles 120 min	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.75 oz
OG	1032
FG	1005.5
ABV	3.51
Apparent attenuation	82.81%
IBU	21
SRM	4
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	174º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	59º F
Yeast	WLP002 English Ale

 

Listen to brewer John Hatch explain how they brewed at Youngs in the 1990s.  

Hanging around

I'm up early. At 7:20. Feeling fairly crap. After a shower, I feel a bit better. 

Judging is due to start at 9 AM. Right. No way that will happen. 10:30 AM is guess. At the earliest.

I go upstairs for breakfast. No bacon, sadly. There are both scrambled and fried eggs, mind. I go for the former and cheese. Followed by fruit. It’s not a bad spread. With boiled eggs, too. Pastries, cheese, salami. Not bad at all. It almost makes up for the lack of bacon. Almost.

I send the family a picture of my breakfast. I know they’re fascinated by what I eat when I’m away. And I don’t want to disappoint them. 

Surprise, surprise. The start of judging is delayed. First to 10. Then to 12:30. We are in South America, after all. At least we aren’t just hanging around at the judging venue.

I spend the time laying around in my room. Only punctuated by a quick trip to the supermarket around the corner. Where I buy bananas and milk.

At the judging location – the restaurant La Parrilla del Guatón Jerez – there’s some more hanging around. At first outside, then inside.

At 13;30, they still aren’t ready. And we have lunch. Which is a steak and potato salad. A pretty nice steak. I order a beer to go with it. A half litre. Normally, I’d never drink beer during a judging day. Just feel like a beer.

I don’t forget to send the family a picture of my steak. I’m sure that they’ll love to see what I’m eating. 

While eating, I have a chance to talk to some of the other judges. Who are a sociable bunch.

Judging is in the same place. Finally kicking off at around 15:00. Only six hours late. A record, I think. Luckily, 3.5 hours of the wait were in my hotel room. Though I could have got up 90 minutes later. Which would have been nice.

I’m table captain. With Valeria, a local I’ve judged with before, and Columbian Jose. Not sure if being the captain is a good thing. Will it mean more work? I hope not. I hate work. That’s why I retired at 63.

We start with five non-alcoholic beers. That's always fun. They’re surprisingly good. Well, surprisingly non-horrible. Mostly.

After that, it’s pretty much all UK styles. Which is par for the course, when I’m the table captain. Not sure it it’s a good or a bad thing, 

At least Irish Red isn’t on the list. A style I’ve judged six or seven times. And never had an even vaguely decent beer. It’s not just a matter of personal taste. They were technically bad beers, with serious faults. My heart always drops when I see the style on my schedule.

Most of the flights are pretty small, just a couple of beers. Which I like. Other than Scottish Export, of which there are nine examples. Probably about as many as are brewed in Scotland nowadays.

The captaincy doesn’t involve much extra work. Thankfully. Other than clicking a couple of buttons. And, after my career in IT, I’m rather good at clicking buttons.

There’s only one beer with butyric acid – baby sick – across all the flights. Which is a plus. 

Some of our scores are quite far apart. But we manage to come to a consensus without too much arguing. And keep up a pretty decent pace.

We don’t award a huge number of medals. Just a silver and a couple of bronzes.

It's getting late and we still aren't done. We finish at 20:00, with four beers unjudged. We'll do them tomorrow. Despite only judging for five hours, I feel knacked. It’s been an odd and slightly frustrating day.

The plan is to go to brewpub Mango. I decide to give it a miss and go back to the hotel. It’s just getting too late. Even if I just have a couple of beers, with travelling time, I’ll be lucky to be back in the hotel by 23:00.

I buy a sandwich in the hotel, feeling to knackered to walk around the corner to the supermarket. I watch Champions League quarter final highlights on Ziggo. While sipping a little hotel whisky. Just for medicinal purposes, obviously.

When I’ve finished my sandwich, I realise that I haven’t sent the family a photo of it. Hopefully they don’t notice. I’d hate to let them down.

I turn in at 23:00. It's an early start tomorrow. We're being picked up at 7:45. Well, that's the plan. Let's see if that actually happens.

Just a couple of sips of whisky. I’m too desperate for sleep to drink more. Andrew would be so disappointed in me.



La Parrilla del Guatón Jerez
Av. Padre Hurtado 1460, 
Vitacura,
Santiago.
http://www.laparrilladelguatonjerez.cl/


Disclaimer: Copa ACI paid for my accommadation, some meals and some beer. 

 

You can fins a video report of my trip here: 

Long journey south

 It's a late start. My flight is at 21:10. I get a cab at 18:00.

“How much Spanish do you know, Dad?” Alexei asked yesterday.

“Not quite as much as Portuguese.”

“Practically none, then”

“I know some words. Banos. Gracias.Por favor.”

“As I said, practically none”

“It’s all I really need.”

“Old people like you always need to know where the toilets are.”

“Exactly.”

“I was taking the piss, Dad.”

“I know.”

“You’re weird.”

“I know.”

The airport isn't too busy, as it's getting late. It's not long before I'm in the lounge grabbing whisky. and a little something to eat. Though I do drop by the duty free to get some hotel whisky. I’m amazed to be able to afford an Islay whisky: Bunnahabhain

I don't go crazy. As I've a long flight. A very long flight. 18 hours, all told. Too long to turn up smashed. Being deeply cynical about the food I’ll be served on the flight, I get down some food ballast.

The flight is pretty full. Almost every seat taken. Just before we take off, a flight attendant comes along and says something to the woman next to me. Who then disappears off somewhere. I assume she's been upgraded. Just after take-off, she returns. Which is a bummer. Where has she been? 

After an hour or so they feed us some slop. It's just about edible. Especially after I sharpen up my wine with some illicit whisky miniatures.

Eating done, I have a good kip. A long kip. Like seven hours. Then I doze for another couple of hours. Which is the best way to handle such a long flight. The first leg to Buenos Aires is 13.5 hours. I don't even watch anything until the last couple of hours. When we're served a breakfast. Of which I just eat the fruit.

We have the fun of deplaning in Buenos Aires. And going through security again. Before hanging around at the gate for a while. Such a joy, early in the morning.

The plane is much emptier on the second leg, with both the seats to my left empty. Which would give me a great view if the Andes. If the wing weren't in the way.

We’re served a warm, savoury pastry. I eat some of it. My stomach is playing up a bit. Just what I need.

As we start to descend into Santiago, there's a cloud layer completely obscuring the city. Or is it smog? It's hard to tell from up here. Let’s hope it’s the former. For the sake of my lungs.

I dodge the long queue for immigration with my oldie priority. Of which I'm very thankful.

All the time gained is lost as I wait ages for my bag to pop out. I thought it was supposed to have priority?

My lift is waiting for me. Thankfully. I had a couple of airport transfers not show up recently. Which was dead fucking annoying. 

We rumble along the motorway for a while. Past light industrial units and dusty hills. My hotel is on the other side of town. But tunnels makes the journey relatively short.

Soon I'm checking into my hotel. Unfortunately, my room isn't free. Luckly, Chris arranges for me to use the room of a couple of German judges while they're out exploring the city.

I'm just starting to get nicely relaxed when the phone rings. It's reception telling me that my room is ready. Great!

Despite kipping on the plane, I'm knacked. And spend most of the day dozing on the bed vaguely watching NHK English service.

My stomach isn't feeling great. Nor is my left side, where there’s a throbbing pain. And I can't get properly to sleep. I don’t even feel like drinking any of my duty-free whisky. Oh, the joys of growing old!

Chris is supposed to pick me up at 18:45 to take me to the judges' dinner at Flannery’s Irish Geo Pub. He hasn't turned up by 19:20 and I take an Uber with Mike Hall.

With my stomach turning somersaults, I can't eat or drink much. I manage a token chip and a few mouthfuls of beer before heading back to the hotel. Where I turn in almost immediately. It's only 22:00. I don’t even have a sip of hotel whisky.

With my stomach still feeling shit and the pain in my side, I have a disturbed sleep. Waking multiple times. Bum.



Flannery’s Irish Geo Pub
Encomenderos 379, 
Las Condes,
Santiago.

 

You can fins a video report of my trip here:

 

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1960 Youngs SX Ale

The relative popularity of Mild is demonstrated by Youngs brewing two of them. This being the stronger of the pair.

Not that it’s that much stronger. Just 3º of gravity. And 0.2% ABV. So minimally stronger, really. Far smaller quantities were brewed than standard X Ale. For example, in this parti-gyle there were 241 barrels of X and just 45 barrels of SX.

The recipe, obviously, is identical to X Ale. Just the quantities are slightly larger. I find the inclusion of malt extract. Specifically, diastatic malt extract. Presumably, the enzymes are the reason for its inclusion.

Same hops as in X Ale. English from the 1958 and 1959 harvests.

1960 Youngs SX Ale
mild malt	5.00 lb	68.38%
crystal malt 150 L	0.67 lb	9.16%
flaked maize	1.00 lb	13.68%
pale malt extract	0.1875 lb	2.56%
No. 3 invert	0.33 lb	4.51%
caramel 500 SRM	0.125 lb	1.71%
Fuggles 105 min	1.33 oz
OG	1034
FG	1007
ABV	3.57
Apparent attenuation	79.41%
IBU	20
SRM	19
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	105 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP002 English Ale

 

 

Listen to brewer John Hatch explain how they brewed at Youngs in the 1990s.  

Santiago, April 2026

Another travel video. South America again. Chile, to be precise.

 

Beer production in East and West

Yes, more DDR stuff. At least I've thrown in some stuff about West Germany, too.

The DDR was behind the West in terms of consumption per capita for most of its existence. Just about catching up towards the end. What does that tell us? Well, just that the East recovered more slowly from WW II. And beer output took a while to catch up with unfulfilled demand.

Would people have drunk more in the DDR in the 1950s and 1960s if it had been available? Probably. Assuming they had the money to pay for it. But the production capacity and raw materials simply weren't there to brew more beer.

Getting on for three litres a week is quite a lot of beer. That's probably about as much as I drink nowadays. Along with a couple of litres of whisky.

I've not much more to say. Just lean back and admire the numbers. They deserve that.

Beer production and consumption in the 2 bits of Germany 1950 - 2000
	DDR			BRD
Year	Production Soft Drinks	Production Beer	Per capita consumption Beer in liters	Beer consumption	Per capita consumption in liters
1950	923	3,820	22	18,176	35.6
1955	1,416	11,772	52		67
1960	3,546	13,424	68.5	52,633	94.7
1965	4,765	13,633	79.5	72,063	122.1
1970	6,470	16,642	95.7	85,603	141.1
1975	11,443	20,380	119.2	91,408	147.8
1980	13,094	23,633	139.7	89,820	145.9
1985	14,409	24,288	140	88,977	145.8
1989	17,661	24,843	141	88,586	142.7
1990				98,283	142.7
1991				113,871	141.9
1992				114,424	142
2000				103,309	125.6
Source:
Die Brau- und Malzindustrie in Deutschland-Ost zwischen 1945 und 1989, VLB, 2016, page 301.

 

DDR beer production by Bezirk in 1987

Some more lovely numbers from "Die Brau- und Malzindustrie in Deutschland-Ost zwischen 1945 und 1989". As you all know, you can never have too many numbers.

I really like this set of numbers because they teach me something new. That there was a lot of tank beer in the DDR. I hadn't realised that there was any at all. 

I drank a lot of draught beer in Berlin. Given that almost 60% of draught beer was in tank form, the odds are that I drank it. And quite a bit, too. Without taking a look in the cellar, there was no way to tell. Unless you could find a chatty waiter.

The top three beer-producing Bezirks were, in descending order, Dresden, Karl-Marx_stadt and Berlin. Between them, they accounted for 37% of beer production. The least productive Bezirks were Cottbus and Franfurt an der Oder (both on the Polish border), Neubrandenburg and Schwerin (both in the North). Areas that weren't very heavily populated or industrialised.

A majority of beer was in bottled form everywhere, except Neubrandenburg and Franfurt an der Oder. Both Bezirks with relatively small beer production.

With regards to tank beer, in most Bezirks it was more common than kegs. I'd love to know more about when tanks were installed. And if they were still being installed in 1989. In the UK, tanks really went out of fashion in the 1980s. Not sure if it still exists at all. 

DDR beer production by Bezirk in 1987
Bezirk	Beer Production in 1000 hL
	Bottle	Draught	Tank	total
Cottbus	207.9	52.3	0	260.2
Dresden	2130	423	869	3422
Erfurt	1094.1	271	384.9	1750
Gera	859.5	215.1	362.3	1436.9
Halle	1319.5	456.5	536	2312
Karl-Marx-Stadt	2051.3	344	751	3146.3
Leipzig	1441	506.7	335.3	2283
Magdeburg	1255.2	364.8	200	1820
Neubrandenburg	404	185	331	920
Potsdam	702.9	262.7	366.6	1332.2
Rostock	923	175	354	1452
Schwerin	724	127	86	937
Suhl	576.5	148	106	830.5
Franfurt an der Oder	173.3	99	131.1	403.4
Berlin	1693	466.2	639.8	2799
total	15,555.20	4,096.30	5,453.00	25,104.50
Source:
Die Brau- und Malzindustrie in Deutschland-Ost zwischen 1945 und 1989, VLB, 2016, page 301.

DDR beer production by Bezirk in 1987 (%)
Bezirk	Bottle	Draught	Tank
Cottbus	79.90%	20.10%	0.00%
Dresden	62.24%	12.36%	25.39%
Erfurt	62.52%	15.49%	21.99%
Gera	59.82%	14.97%	25.21%
Halle	57.07%	19.74%	23.18%
Karl-Marx-Stadt	65.20%	10.93%	23.87%
Leipzig	63.12%	22.19%	14.69%
Magdeburg	68.97%	20.04%	10.99%
Neubrandenburg	43.91%	20.11%	35.98%
Potsdam	52.76%	19.72%	27.52%
Rostock	63.57%	12.05%	24.38%
Schwerin	77.27%	13.55%	9.18%
Suhl	69.42%	17.82%	12.76%
Franfurt an der Oder	42.96%	24.54%	32.50%
Berlin	60.49%	16.66%	22.86%
total	61.96%	16.32%	21.72%
Source:
Die Brau- und Malzindustrie in Deutschland-Ost zwischen 1945 und 1989, VLB, 2016, page 301.

 

 

 

The Berlin brewing industry in 1944

Getting numbers for brewing in Germany in WW II isn't an easy task. I only have very incomplete information. Mostly, for the  early war years.

It may well be that there is no accurate information for the final chaotic months of the war. When people had lots of other things to worry about. And brewing statistics weren't much of a priority. If brewing was taking place at all.

That's why I was so happy to find these numbers for brewing in Berlin in 1944.

I'm fairly gobsmacked at the total quantity produced: almost 4 million hl. Though that does include drinks other than beer. And I imagine that most of the beer was so weak as to be barely recognisable as beer.

There are 21 breweries in total. Of which, 11 were in East Berlin. Interesting, that. As West Berlin was double the size of East Berlin. However, the two largest breweries, Kindl Neuköln and Schulthess Kreuzberg, were both in the West.

Several companies operated multiple breweries: Schulthess 6, Engelhardt 3, Kindl 2 and Löwenbrauerei 2. With these spread across the East and West sections of the city. Which made things complicated. In the 1980s, there were beers branded Schultheiss and Kindl in both the East and West. Using exactly the same logos, even though they were completely separate enterprises. 

Key operational data of Berlin breweries 1944
Brewery	Production of beer and beverages in hl	Total employees	Special production/headcount in hl/a	Special production/Total workforce in hl/a	Energy consumption in kg/hl 2)
Berliner Bürgerbräu	201,915	211	1309	914	13.62
Böhmisches Brauhaus-Löwenbrauerei	268,628	354	1226	783	16.25
Bergschloß-Brauerei	104,821	107	1442	957	22.7
Bötzow-Brauerei	113,311	218	776	513	18.15
Engelhardt-Brauerei, Abt. Stralau	161,607	203	1468	817	17.44
Engelhardt-Brauerei, Abt. Pankow	155,730	183	1426	874	20.07
Engelhardt-Brauerei, Abt. Charlottenb.	55,215	78	1222	689	13.25
Groterjan-Brauerei	276,270	420	1083	622	7.45
Hochschul-Brauerei 1)	30,503	57	824	535	21.98
Monopol-Brauerei	97,724	99	1396	1303	18.28
Kindl-Brauerei. Abt, Neukölln	392,522	508	1570	837	20.76
Kindl-Brauerei. Abt, Weißensee	272,657	321	1855	931	22.17
Schloß-Brauerei 2)	150,972	185	1399	851	17.58
Schultheiss-Brauerei, Abt. Kreuzberg	421,659	511	1310	872	14.42
Schultheiss-Brauerei, Abt. NO	304,497	524	675	563	18.25
Schultheiss-Brauerei, Abt. Schönh. Al.	245,648	326	1150	802	11.46
Schultheiss-Brauerei, Abt. Spandau	233,024	351	938	693	16.88
Schultheiss-Brauerei, Abt. Nd.-Schw.	220,137	254	1121	899	16.15
Schultheiss-Brauerei, Abt. Stromstr.	193,899	335	830	604	14.08
Willner Brauerei	14,167	41	616	383	26.44
Total	3,914,906	5,286
1) Already bomb damaged
2) In kilograms of hard coal at 6600 heat units/kg
Source:
Die Brau- und Malzindustrie in Deutschland-Ost zwischen 1945 und 1989, VLB, 2016, page 111.

 

Let's Brew - 1960 Youngs X Ale

At the start of the 1960s, Youngs were still brewing pretty large quantities of Mild. By the end of the decade, they were making rather less. As Mild rapidly fell out of favour in London.

It’s a fairly typical Mild of the period, being dark and pretty watery. The grist is quite simple, just mild and crystal malt along with some flaked maize and sugar. At least, I think it’s flaked maize. It just says “flakes” in the brewing record. In the 1980s and 1990s, that was flaked torrefied barley. I’m guessing that in these earlier records, it means the more usual flaked maize.

There were two types of sugar: No. 3 invert and CDM (Caramelised Dextro-Maltose). For the latter, I’ve substituted straight caramel. Which should be close enough. Unless, by some miracle, you can get hold of real CDM.

Two types of English hops, one from the 1958 harvest and one from 1959. 

1960 Youngs X Ale
mild malt	4.50 lb	67.75%
crystal malt 150 L	0.50 lb	7.53%
flaked maize	1.00 lb	15.05%
pale malt extract	0.1875 lb	2.82%
No. 3 invert	0.33 lb	4.97%
caramel 500 SRM	0.125 lb	1.88%
Fuggles 105 min	1.25 oz
OG	1031
FG	1005.5
ABV	3.37
Apparent attenuation	82.26%
IBU	19
SRM	18
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	105 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP002 English Ale

 

 

Listen to brewer John Hatch explain how they brewed at Youngs in the 1990s.