Scottish & Newcastle beers in 1996 yet again

More details from the beer specifications document. I'm doing a great job of spinning multiple posts out those few typewritten sheets.

This time, they're all beers for domestic distribution. Though some were sort of going overseas.

First is a watery keg beer of around just 3% ABV,

McEwans Pale Ale
Holyrood brews kegged at Park Stores.

Distribution: In road tankers ex IIMV room to Contract Bottlers

Tyne - Bowser filtered for kegging.
Holyrood and Fountain beer specifications held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/8/1.

Nothing very interesting there.

Next is another watery Pale Ale of just 3% ABV.

Youngers Pale Ale
Holyrood brews kegged at Park Stores. Fountain brews kegged at Tyne.

Distribution - In road tanker ex HMV room to Contract Bottlers:

Belfast - Supplied rough. Processed at Belfast and bottled as Wee Willie Pale (1/2 pints) or Holyrood Ale (pints) - coloured to 36º.

Kendal - Supplied sheet filtered (colour 24º) for bottling.

London (Bates) - Supplied sheet filtered for bottling.
Holyrood and Fountain beer specifications held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/8/1.

Technically, Belfast is overseas from Scotland. Interesting that the pints and half-pints were sold under different names in Belfast. And that the beer was coloured darker. It was 24º, as brewed.

Finally, we have Brown Ale.

Brown Ale
Processed at Park Stores.

Distribution - In tanker ex HMV to Contract Bottlers:

Kendal - Supplied sheet filtered for bottling (LS 1/2 pints) as.

London (Bates) - Supplied sheet filtered for bottling (LS 1/2 pints) as.

Belfast - Supplied rough where it is processed and bottled in in pint crowns as Nut Brown Ale or S.D.A. or in 1/2 pint dumps as Wee Willie Brown.
Holyrood and Fountain beer specifications held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/8/1.

It's fascinating that they were still using third-party bottlers. At least, that's what I assume contract bottlers were. As S & N didn't have any breweries south of Newcastle, they also had limited numbers of sites to bottle. Economically, it makes far more sense to ship beer by tanker, then bottle, rather than moving bottled beer around the country.

Again, the pints and half-pints got different names in Northern Ireland. I'm guessing that S.D.A. stands for "Special Dark Ale". Which, if they mean specially weak, is an appropriate name.
 

What is English Brown Ale?

Another of my little videos. This time explaining the shooting star of a beeer style, English Brown Ale.

 

UK beer sales by type 1971 - 1981 (%)

What a different world the 1970's were. At the start of the decade, draught Bitter and Mild made up around two-thirds of all beer sales. And Lager could only manage 10% of the market across both draught and bottled. By the decade's end, draught Lager was rapidly closing in on Bitter.

The headline is the huge growth in popularity. Notice the big jump in Lager sales in 1975 and 1976. Two years with particularly hot summers. I'm guessing that if I had the numbers broken down by month that a lot of the growth would have occurred during the hotter months. Over the whole period, Lager sales increased by 227%. Which is a fuck load by anyone's standards.

The biggest losers were bottled beers: Brown Ale, down 65%, and Stout, down 57%. Not helped by by the fact that bottled beer sales were down 23%. You can see that once popular beers, such as Light Ale and Brown Ale, were on their way to oblivion. The fall in bottled sales would have been even more dramatic, had their not been 168% increase in Lager sales.

These can't have been very good time for Guinness, as they totally dominated the Stout market. And bottles Stout was one of the biggest losers. Though this may have been distorted by increasing sales of draught Guinness. Unfortunately, this is impossible to see as draught Stout was, for some reason, lumped in with Bitter.

Amongst the draught beers, Mild sales fell 37% and Bitter sales 7%. Not as bad as the decline in bottled beers, but still significant. In the later decades, as Mild vanished into the void, Bitter sales would come under more pressure. As we will see in a later post.

Sales of Strong Ales were tiny. In 1981, just 318,000 hl. Out of a total consumption of 63.6 million hl. 

UK beer sales by type 1971 - 1981 (%)
Type	1971	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981	change 1971-1981
Draught
Mild	17.7	15.9	14.2	13.8	13.3	12.6	12.7	11.9	11.4	11.3	11.2	-36.72%
Bitter & Stout	48.7	48.9	47.6	47.4	46.9	45.9	46.8	45.6	44.7	44.5	45.1	-7.39%
Lager:	7.1	8.6	11.3	12.6	15.6	18.5	19.0	20.6	22.1	23.0	23.2	226.76%
total draught	73.5	73.4	73.1	73.8	75.8	77.0	78.5	78.1	78.2	78.8	79.5	8.16%
Bottled
Light, Pale and Export:	11.5	11.4	11.9	11.7	10.9	9.9	8.9	8.5	8.1	7.5	7.4	-35.65%
Lager:	2.8	3.1	3.5	3.7	4.2	5.1	5.4	6.3	7.0	7.6	7.5	167.86%
Brown:	4.0	3.9	3.7	3.5	2.8	2.4	2.0	1.9	1.8	1.6	1.4	-65.00%
Stout:	7.0	6.8	6.4	5.9	5.0	4.3	3.9	3.7	3.5	3.2	3.0	-57.14%
Strong Ales and Barley Wines	0.6	0.7	0.7	0.6	0.6	0.6	0.6	0.6	0.5	0.5	0.5	-16.67%
party containers	0.6	0.7	0.7	0.8	0.7	0.7	0.7	0.9	0.9	0.7	0.6	0.00%
Total bottled	26.5	26.6	26.9	26.2	24.2	23.0	21.5	21.9	21.8	21.1	20.4	-23.02%
Source:
The Brewers' Society Statistical Handbook 1980, page 10.
The Brewers' Society Statistical Handbook 1988, page 15.

 

Brown Ale

Now I'm back from my travels, I've been getting stuck into some research. Specifically, research for my book "Free!" Aiming to fill a Brown-Ale-sized hole in my knowledge. 

Trawling through the newspaper archive, I immediately got a couple of promising hits. Bottled beers clearly called Brown Ale from the early 1900s. What's even better, one of them is an advert from Fullers. From 1909.

Why is that such a good thing? Because I have their brewing records from 1910. Meaning I can match up the beers on the advert with the relevant brewing records. And, hey presto, I have my earliest Brown Ale brewing record. My only one from before WW I.

Let's start with the Fullers ad.

Fullers advert in the Acton Gazette - Friday 16 July 1909, page 4.

 Brown Ale appears as both a draught beer and one sold in crates of four bottles. The former is unusual. Usually Brown Ale was exclusively a bottled beer.

Here's that advert in handy table form:

Fullers Advertisement from 1909
beer	price per barrel	price (per gallon)	price (per doz) pint	size
XK Bitter Pale Ale	48	16
AK Light Bitter Ale	38	12.67
X Amber Mild Ale	38	12.67
H Brown Ale	38	12.67
Double Stout	56	18.67
Single Stout	46	15.33
Porter	38	12.67
Pale Ale			2s 9d
India Pale Ale			3s 9d
Nourishing Stout			2s 9d
Oatmeal Stout			2s 9d
Extra Stout			3s 9d
Pale Ale			1s 4d	crate of 4 quarts
Brown Ale			1s 4d	crate of 4 quarts
Stout			1s 4d	crate of 4 quarts
India Pale Ale			1s 10d	crate of 4 quarts
Extra Stout			1s 10d	crate of 4 quarts
Source:
Acton Gazette - Friday 16 July 1909, page 4.

And here are the beers from the brewing record.

Fullers beers in 1910
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
X	Mild	1052.6	1014.7	5.01	72.08%	5.17	1.21
AK	Pale Ale	1044.9	1008.3	4.84	81.48%	7.29	1.43
PA	Pale Ale	1054.2	1012.2	5.55	77.49%	8.92	2.15
P	Porter	1048.6	1011.9	4.85	75.47%	6.64	1.28
BS	Stout	1069.5	1019.9	6.56	71.30%	6.64	1.84
BO	Strong Ale	1074.9	1024.4	6.68	67.44%	9.84	3.05
Source:
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.

A couple of notes on the draught beers. XK from the advert is obviously PA in the brewing record. And both X and H must be derived from X in the brewing record. With H just being X coloured up darker at racking time.

And where does Single Stout come from? There's just Porter and one Stout in the brewing record. It has to be a blend of Porter and Stout. Based on the price, a 50-50 blend.

In the crate beers, Pale Ale must be AK, Brown Ale must be X and Stout must be Porter.

What does this tell us? That Brown Ale, even in its earliest days, could already just be a tweaked version of Mild Ale.

 

 

 

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1964 Eldridge Pope Dorset Brown Ale

You should let me know if there's any particular period of recipes you'd like. Especially if you want me to stop posting watery post-WW II recipes.

Essentially identical of the Mild was Eldridge pope’s Brown Ale. It was often parti-gyled with it, though this particular example also had XXXX in the mix, too.

This is another beer that was darker than the recipe implies. I’ve added enough caramel to get the colour right.

The hopping is very similar in all Eldridge Pope’s beers. In this case, it’s Kent (1961), Worcester (1962) and Sussex (1962). Some of the others also contain a small amount of Styrian Goldings. 

1964 Eldridge Pope Dorset Brown Ale
pale malt	4.00 lb	66.67%
crystal malt 60 L	0.75 lb	12.50%
wheat flour	0.25 lb	4.17%
malt extract	0.25 lb	4.17%
brown sugar	0.25 lb	4.17%
white sugar	0.25 lb	4.17%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.25 lb	4.17%
Fuggles 90 min	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.50 oz
OG	1025.5
FG	1006.5
ABV	2.51
Apparent attenuation	74.51%
IBU	14
SRM	20
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	61.5º F
Yeast	WLP099 Super High Gravity Thomas Hardy

The above is an excerpt from my overly detailed look at post-war UK brewing, Austerity!

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ronald-pattinson/austerity/paperback/product-1mkrq4zg.html

There's also a Kindle edition.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1969 Elgood Brown Ale

Now here’s a rarity: a real Brown Ale recipe. Why a rarity? Because most brewers were simply tweaking their Dark Mild to create a Brown Ale. Meaning they don’t show up in brewing records.

The recipe is a fairly typical mix of base malt, flaked maize and sugar. With the latter providing most of the colour. There’s also some crystal malt which will also be doing some of the lifting with regards to the colour. The base malt was 100% mild malt. Which is no surprise.

The brewing record is rather vague as to the type of sugar being used, describing it simply as “invert”. I’ve guessed No. 3, but it could equally have been No. 1 or No. 3. Feel free to use another invert of your choice.

A fairly standard underlet mashing scheme was used.

action	barrels	strike heat	initial heat	mins stood
mash	20	147º F	140º F	20
underlet	4	198º F	149º F	100
sparge 1	20	168º F
sparge 2	6	164º F
sparge 3	22	158º F

Into the copper went a single type of English hops from the 1968 crop. 

1969 Elgood Brown Ale
mild malt	4.00 lb	64.00%
crystal malt 60 L	0.75 lb	12.00%
flaked maize	0.75 lb	12.00%
No. 3 invert	0.50 lb	8.00%
caramel 500 SRM	0.25 lb	4.00%
Fuggles 95 min	0.33 oz
Fuggles 60 min	0.33 oz
Fuggles 30 min	0.33 oz
OG	1030
FG	1007
ABV	3.04
Apparent attenuation	76.67%
IBU	13
SRM	16
Mash at	149º F
Sparge at	168º F
Boil time	95 minutes
pitching temp	60.5º F
Yeast	WLP007 Dry English Ale

Brown Ale in 1972

A slight change of pace as we look at a bottled beer, rather than the draught beers discussed before.

It's a shame that most of the Mirror articles only covered draught beers. It did make sense, as, at the time, the vast majority of beer was drunk in draught form: around 80%. But it means that I have little information on the bottled beers of the 1970s. As the Good Beer Guide only listed the OG of draught beers. Other than the handful of beers which were still being bottle conditioned.

We're starting with Brown Ale. A style which had been very popular between the wars and in the 1950s, but which had started to fall out of favour by the 1970s. It's not a type of beer I ever considered drinking. Mostly on cost grounds. Now I realise that most of the examples were also barely alcoholic.

The cheaper examples come out at 12p or 14p per pint. More expensive than Mild, which was around 11p. But also weaker. Only five of the Brown Ales are over 3% ABV. And two of those are the very atypical Newcastle Brown and Double Maxim.

Worst value, now here's a surprise, were the London-brewed beers. Which averaged a pathetic 2.7% ABV. Mostly as a result of poor attenuation. In that respect they parallel London Mild Ales. Just even weaker.

The beers from the North and the Midlands generally show a greater degree of attenuation. And average almost 3.5% ABV. Take out the two strong ones, and it comes to ever so slightly above 3% ABV. Still not great, but at least intoxicating. Interesting that those two strong ones were some of the best value, with Double Maxim far out in front.

The Southern beers were even more poorly attenuated than those from London. and averaged a pathetic 2.53% ABV. I wonder if drinkers were aware of just how watery Brown Ale was. I can only imagine that such a revelation would have reduced demand even more.

What next? Maybe Light Ale. A type of beer which is almost totally extinct. 

Brown Ale in 1972
Brewer	Beer	Price per half pint (p)	º gravity per p	% ABV per p	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
London
Truman	Trubrown	8.5	3.76	0.29	1032	1012.6	2.50	60.62%
Charrington	Toby Brown Ale	8	3.89	0.31	1031.1	1011.7	2.50	62.38%
Young	Brown Ale	8	3.96	0.37	1031.7	1008.6	3.00	73.03%
Mann	Brown Ale	8	4.15	0.31	1033.2	1013.8	2.50	58.43%
Whitbread	Forest Brown Ale	7	4.61	0.40	1032.3	1010.65	2.80	67.03%
Courage	Brown Ale	7	4.81	0.41	1033.7	1011.3	2.90	66.47%
Average		7.8	4.20	0.35	1032.3	1011.4	2.70	64.66%
Midlands and North
Wolverhampton & Dudley	Banks Brown Ale	8	4.16	0.38	1033.3	1010.1	3.00	69.67%
Theakston	Brown Ale	9	3.47	0.32	1031.2	1008.8	2.90	71.79%
Scottish & Newcastle	Newcastle Brown Ale	9.75	4.71	0.46	1045.9	1011.3	4.50	75.49%
Vaux	Double Maxim	8.5	5.16	0.49	1043.9	1011.5	4.20	73.80%
Jennings	Castle Brown Ale	9	3.73	0.38	1033.6	1007.4	3.40	77.98%
Greenall Whitley	Bullseye	8	4.20	0.35	1033.6	1011.9	2.80	64.58%
Average		8.7	4.24	0.40	1036.9	1010.2	3.47	72.22%
South
Greene King	Harvest Brown Ale	7.5	4.36	0.37	1032.7	1011.1	2.80	66.21%
Ind Coope	Brown Ale	7	4.57	0.34	1032	1013.4	2.40	58.13%
Cook	Nutbrown Ale	7	4.70	0.34	1032.9	1014.3	2.40	56.53%
Adnams	Brown Ale	6	4.97	0.42	1029.8	1010.5	2.50	64.93%
Devenish	Bosun Brown Ale	8.75	3.68	0.31	1032.2	1011.3	2.70	64.91%
Hall & Woodhouse	John Brown	8	4.25	0.30	1034	1015.4	2.40	54.71%
Average		7.4	4.42	0.35	1032.3	1012.7	2.53	60.90%
Source:
Daily Mirror - Tuesday 11 July 1972, page 9

Provincial Brown Ale during WW II

I'm posting this for a reason. Not just that I got a bit tipsy this afternoon at Brett Fest things. 

Well, that is sort of the reason. Because, without the distraction of meeting people, All would be done and dusted with my latest book. The one I've been working on for five years.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I'll finally get the bugger published. It will be a special day. For me, if no-one else.

I’m afraid that I have no details of any specific provincial Brown Ales. As Whitbread’s spies didn’t get out much during the war. No beers called Brown Ale appear in the brewing records I have, either.

Hence the very sparse table.

Luckily, the two beers do encompass the two main types of Brown Ale. Which for simplicity’s sake I call Strong Brown Ale and Weak Brown Ale. I’m reluctant to call the former Northern Brown Ale as there were beers in that style brewed in London. Whitbread Double Brown, for example.

The Newkie Brown was pretty highly attenuated. Was that to compensate for the fall on gravity? As you’ll see later, post-war versions had a higher OG but lower degree of attenuation.

Quite a contrast is the Dam Smith’s beer. Looking more like a Mild. Which is what it probably was. Perhaps primed a little differently. Not so great attenuation means it was probably fairly sweet. 

Provincial Brown Ale during WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1940	Newcastle Breweries	Brown Ale		1048.5	1008.5	5.21	82.47%
1942	Samuel Smith	Taddy's Nut Brown Ale	10	1033.4	1009.8	3.06	70.66%
Sources:
Thomas Usher Gravity Book held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TU/6/11.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.

This is an excerpt from my recently-released Blitzkrieg!, the definitive book on brewing during WW II.

Get your copy now!

The second volume contains the recipes. But not just that. There are also overviews of some of the breweries covered, showing their beers at the start and the end of the conflict.

Buy one now and be the envy of your friends!