AK hops during WW II

I doubt it will come as much of a shock that the hops used in AK during the war were almost exclusively English.

Hop imports almost totally dried up during the war. Falling from 44,056 cwt. in 1939 to just 2,024 cwt. in 1940. During the last four years of the war a total of a mere 3,589 cwt. were imported. The vast majority - 3,254 cwt. - in 1943.* That must have been the year when Shepherd Neame's Oregon hops were imported.

I am slightly surprised that Shepherd Neame were still using hops from the 1940 and 1941 seasons as late as 1944. By the later war years brewers had mostly used up their old stocks and were limited to hops from the most recent harvest and possibly the one before that.

It's a shame Shepherd Neame didn't bother recording the growing region. We can, however, safely assume that the majority were from Kent. What with the brewery being located in that county and having its own hop gardens.

AK hops during WW II
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3	hop 4
23rd Jan	1940	Greene King	AK	EK (1936)	EK (1938)
8th May	1940	Fullers	AK	English (1938)	English (1939)
20th May	1940	Shepherd Neame	AK	English (1937)	English (1938)	English (1939)
25th May	1941	Fullers	AK	English (1939)	English (1940)
4th Feb	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	English (1939)	English (1941)	English (1942)
18th Dec	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	English (1940)	English (1941)	English (1942)	English (1943)
21st Feb	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	English (1940)	English (1941)	English (1942)	English (1943)
27th Nov	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	English (1941)	English (1943)	English (1944)	Oregon (1942)
22nd Feb	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	English (1941)	English (1943)	English (1944)	Oregon (1942)
7th May	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	English (1941)	English (1943)	English (1944)	Oregon (1942)
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Greene King brewing record held at the brewery, document number AC93/1/14 .
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery.

* 1955 Brewers' Almanack, page 64.

AK sugars during WW II

Given the high percentage of malt in these beers, it's little surprise that they don't contain a huge amount of sugar. Loads of different types, mind.

Only one, No. 2 invert, appears in more than one, Greene King and Fullers. But only in tiny quantities, the largest amount is less than 2.5%. You'll note that it's far less than before the war, when it was just shy of 10%. Doubtless the reduction was due to difficulties in sugar supply.

CWA, the other sugar, I found was described as a starch conversion syrup, that is an enzymatic syrup. I assume it must have been added in the mash tun rather than the kettle. 

Intense was a caramel of some sort. Pretty obvious from both the name and the minute amount employed. Its use will have been for colour correction rather than flavour of fermentable material.

The malt extract used by Shepherd Neame was EDME, a type of diastatic malt syrup. I suppose it's technically a type of sugar, despite being derived from malt. The candy sugar used in one example was presumably employed as primings..

AK sugars during WW II
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	malt extract	no. 2 sugar	glucose	CWA	Intense	candy
23rd Jan	1940	Greene King	AK		2.35%		2.35%
8th May	1940	Fullers	AK		0.63%	0.63%		0.09%
20th May	1940	Shepherd Neame	AK
25th May	1941	Fullers	AK		1.39%	1.39%		0.09%
4th Feb	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	0.69%
18th Dec	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	0.66%
21st Feb	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	0.64%					0.64%
27th Nov	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	0.66%
22nd Feb	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	0.66%
7th May	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	1.32%
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Greene King brewing record held at the brewery, document number AC93/1/14 .
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery.

Hops next time.

 

AK grists during WW II

I'm so glad I found a Greene King AK. It means I've something more than just a whole bunch of Shepherd Neame and Fullers versions.

It is the only one, too. Either they didn't brew it very often or it mostly came from their other brew house. Which reminds me - Henry still hasn't sent me the photos he took when we visited the brewery almost three years ago. He was responsible for snapping the records from the other brew house.

An awful lot of base malt and not much else is the short description. Only two beers contain any other malt: crystal in Greene King's version and black malt in one of Shepherd Neame's. The latter seems a little odd. 

So odd, that I've gone back and checked the brewing record. Sure enough, 33 lbs of black malt is clearly there. But bot with the3 rest of the malt. Which implies it may not have been used in the mash tun. It seems to turn up sporadically, mostly in parti-gyles which include SXX, the strongest of their Pale Ales. But not always. Maybe they just didn't always note it down.

Moving on to adjuncts,  there's some flaked rice in the Fullers examples. That's because they're both from the early war years. Had their AK survived a little longer, it, too, would have included flaked barley. 

If you recall their  pre-war versions, you'll know that Shepherd Neame brewed their Pale Ales from 100% malt. Well, and a tiny amount of malt extract. Which, I suppose, counts as malt, too. Their use if flaked barley in the later war years wasn't the brewery's choice. All brewers were compelled to use it.

AK grists during WW II
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	pale malt	crystal malt	black malt	flaked rice	flaked barley
23rd Jan	1940	Greene King	AK	91.76%	3.53%
8th May	1940	Fullers	AK	86.32%			12.33%
20th May	1940	Shepherd Neame	AK	99.67%
25th May	1941	Fullers	AK	92.97%			4.16%
4th Feb	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	86.90%				12.41%
18th Dec	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	87.42%				11.92%
21st Feb	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	85.01%		2.10%		11.59%
27th Nov	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	85.43%				13.91%
22nd Feb	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	85.43%				13.91%
7th May	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	84.87%				13.82%
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Greene King brewing record held at the brewery, document number AC93/1/14 .
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery.

Sugars up next.

AK during WW II

The excitement just never ends when it comes to AK. Or perhaps it just never started. For you. For me, I can't never get me enough.

Someone mentioned recently that they thought AK died out between the wars. That's not really true. AK was given a good old kick in the bollocks by WW I. Many found their demise in the war's brutal gravity cuts. Others, though fatally weakened, soldiered on. Another war was the last thing they needed.

Kicking off the war at a little over 1030º, there wasn't far they could go once a new round of gravity cuts began to bite. 

Greene King seem to have dropped theirs early doors. Its AK had the bad luck to have another beer, PA, that was just a tiny bit stronger. When gravities fell, it dropped into AK's slot and that was it.

At Fullers, their three pre-war Pale Ales, in ascending order of strength, AK, XK and PA, were pared back to just a single beer in 1942, PA No. 2.

Shepherd Neame's version had the good fortune that the next Pale Ale up the hierarchy of strength, BB, was a good bit stronger at the outbreak of war. 1039.3º to AK's 1031.3º. A gap large enough that, even after the drop in strength, there was still a gap of 4º at war's end. The reprieve was only temporary. AK was discontinued in 1951.

AK during WW II
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
23rd Jan	1940	Greene King	AK	1031.6	1007.2	3.22	77.19%	6.00	0.75
8th May	1940	Fullers	AK	1029.1	1008.6	2.71	70.48%	9.02	1.05
20th May	1940	Shepherd Neame	AK	1030.5	1005.5	3.30	81.82%	6.89	0.80
25th May	1941	Fullers	AK	1028.4	1006.4	2.91	77.56%	7.40	0.81
4th Feb	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	1027.1	1005.0	2.93	81.63%	4.62	0.54
18th Dec	1943	Shepherd Neame	AK	1027.1	1005.9	2.81	78.16%	4.59	0.52
21st Feb	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	1027.1	1005.8	2.82	78.47%	4.45	0.51
27th Nov	1944	Shepherd Neame	AK	1027.1	1006.4	2.75	76.53%	4.87	0.53
22nd Feb	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	1027.1	1005.5	2.86	79.59%	4.87	0.55
7th May	1945	Shepherd Neame	AK	1027.1	1006.0	2.80	78.06%	4.75	0.55
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Greene King brewing record held at the brewery, document number AC93/1/14 .
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery.

Grists next time.

AK hops 1925 - 1939

Finally, a look at the hops. With two exceptions – Pacifics in one Fullers example and Saaz in the Greene King beer – all of the hops were English. No great surprise there. After WW I knocked down gravities UK brewing needed fewer hops and was far closer to self-sufficiency than it had been before the war.

Where a region of origin in mentioned, Kent is by far the most common. With just a single example from Worcester. As Shepherd Neame was based in Kent and had its own hop gardens, it’s fair to assume that most of its hops would have come from their home county. The same is probably true of Fullers, too.

Note that every example contains at least two types and half contain three or more. This was typical of UK brewing at the time. Many of the hops used were not from the most recent season, something which was also standard practice.

AK hops 1925 - 1939
Year	Brewer	Beer	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3	hop 4	hop 5
1925	Fullers	AK	Pacifics (1922)	English (1923)	English 1924)
1930	Whitbread	AK	Worcester (1929)	EK (1929)	EK (1929)
1931	Fullers	AK	English (1929)	English (1930)
1935	Fullers	AK	English (1935)	English (1935)
1937	Fullers	AK	English (1936)	English (1936)
1937	Greene King	AK	Kent (1935)	MK (1935)	EK (1936)	Saaz (1936)	EK (1936) dry hops
1937	Shepherd Neame	AK	English (1935)	English (1936)	English (1937)
1939	Fullers	AK	English (1938)	English (1938)
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Greene King brewing record held at the brewery, document number AC93/1/12 .
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/096.

AK 1925 - 1939

I warned you that I had loads more AK stuff. I wasn't joking. 

This time we're looking at the interwar period. Many breweries dropped their AK during WW I. But not Whitbread. They introduced one in 1930. It didn't last long. In all, only 1,012 barrels were brewed. That's a tiny proportion of the 535,271 barrels they brewed that year.

Small batches is a bit of a theme with these interwar AKs. The largest batch of Fullers AK was just nine barrels, the smallest a mere two barrels. Greene King's and Shepherd Neame's were only 70-odd barrels, still far short of their full brew length.

The gravities are all pretty similar, mostly in the 1031º-1034º range. The exception being Whitbread at a tad under 1030º. Most are pretty well-attenuated, the only exception being Greene King. That high degree of attenuation leaves most a good bit over 3% ABV.

It's no surprise that the London examples - Whitbread and Fullers - are more heavily hopped that the beers from more rural districts. London brewers always seem to have been heavier with the hops than most of their provincial rivals.

AK 1925 - 1939
Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
1925	Fullers	AK	1032.3	1007.8	3.24	75.97%	9.8	1.28
1930	Whitbread	AK	1029.3	1004.0	3.35	86.36%	13.0	1.54
1931	Fullers	AK	1032.3	1006.1	3.46	81.12%	9.9	1.27
1935	Fullers	AK	1033.4	1006.4	3.58	80.93%	9.2	1.44
1937	Fullers	AK	1033.7	1007.2	3.50	78.62%	9.5	1.25
1937	Greene King	AK	1033.8	1011.1	3.00	67.21%	7.0	0.95
1937	Shepherd Neame	AK	1031.3	1006.9	3.22	77.88%	6.9	0.64
1939	Fullers	AK	1033.4	1006.6	3.53	80.07%	9.2	1.25
	Average		1032.4	1007.0	3.36	78.52%	9.3	1.20
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Greene King brewing record held at the brewery, document number AC93/1/12 .
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/096.

Next time: interwar AK grists.

Greene King worries about hops

Company annual reports can be an unexpected source of information. And I don't mean the dull financial stuff.

This one from Greene King contains many traditional elements. Such as moaning about the level of taxation on beer. Which had been a feature, well, since annual reports started.

This being wartime, there were some very specific, conflict-related complaints. In particular, relating the problem of being dependent on domestically-grown hops, of which there weren't enough.

Have a read and then I'll get back to the subject of hops.

"Greene, King & Sons.— The fifty-sixth ordinary general v meeting was held at Bury St. Edmunds on 26th June. In moving the adoption of the report and accounts the Managing Director, Mr. E. L. D. Lake, said : I beg to move the adoption of the Report and Balance Sheet, but before doing so I have to tell you that the Chairman has sent the following message, which explains itself:—

“Owing to the fact that the Annual General Meeting can only be of a purely formal nature, and as no travelling ought to be undertaken unless it is absolutely necessary, I ask the meeting to excuse my attendance this year.

“I cannot, however, let the occasion pass without once more placing on record my appreciation and that of the Board, of the good services of the management, staff and all employed by the firm during the past year. We realise that they have had to carry on during very strenuous and difficult times, and that they have once again proved their efficiency, and their loyalty to the firm.”

Under present conditions, I have very little, to add. In the 1942 Budget the beer duty was increased by approximately 48s. per barrel, and again by 24s. in 1943. These additions make all comparisons useless.

We still have to rely on home-grown materials, and we hope that both barley and hops will be a good crop this year. The position with regard to hops will soon become serious, as every year we, as a trade, consume more than we grow, and stocks are getting exhausted.

We shall continue to carry on to the best of our ability but conditions are not easy. Of our original staff of 400 we have lost 250 to the Forces, of whom I regret to have to report that five have given their lives in the service of their country.

We can only hope that hostilities will finish sooner than at one time seemed possible, and that we shall be able to welcome back all the other original members of our staff who are now serving with the Forces."
The Brewing Trade Review, July 1943, page 234. 

I just happen to have photos of Greene King's brewing records for 1943. (If you're wondering why I've published no recipes, it's because of an NDA I signed.) And guess what I found? Oregon hops in beers brewed in June 1943. So not completely dependent on UK-grown hops, then.

It's not the first time I've come across Oregon hops around this point in the war. A small quantity of the 1942 harvest seems to have slipped in.

Though they would be the last US hops to reach the UK until after war's end.

Hop imports 1938 - 1949
Year ended 31st March	Hops
	Cwt.
1938	45,336
1939	44,056
1940	2,024
1941	11,055
1942	171
1943	3,254
1944	134
1945	30
1946	563
1947	26,928
1948	7,766
1949	174
Source:
1955 Brewers' Almanack, page 64.

Dark Mild Ale (part three)

It was areal shock just how few hits I got in the British Newspaper Archive for "dark mild ale"' Literally, just a handful.

I had more luck - expanding the search, or rather, contracting it - to "dark mild". Which threw up this one:

 Suffolk and Essex Free Press - Thursday 18 December 1924, page 1.

Weird that they call it "Mild Beer" but "Bitter Ale". Even weirder that I drank a pint of XX, in the brewery tap, Less than two years ago.

I've occasionally seen the term "Mild Beer", but not very often. Being the sort of person who obsesses about this sort of rubbish, I've some data to back up this assertion.

I've spent years dredging information from old UK brewery price lists. Which I've put in a spreadsheet, as you do. It has over 4,000 entries. These are the only breweries I could find using the term "Mild Beer" to describer one of their products:

1902 Brook's Cubley Brook Brewery, Sheffield
1884 Leney, Wateringbury
1884 Adey and White, St. Albans
1890 Shepherd Neame, Faversham
1891 St. Anne's Well Brewery, Exeter
1882 Mackeson, Hythe
1882 Gardner, Ash Brewery, near Sandwich
1875 Devenish, Weymouth
1898 WE & J Rigden, Faversham

It's an extremely small subset. While there are hundreds, probably thousands, of instance of the use of the term "Mild Ale".

Why was I in the Greene King brewery tap? Because I was visiting their archive. Which is why I know exactly how strong all those Greene King beers were.

Greene King draught beers in 1935
beer	price per barrel	price (per gallon)	OG
XX Dark Mild Beer	68	23	1029
AK Light Bitter Ale	88	29	1033.2
IA Best Bitter Ale	114	38	1040.7
S Stout	114	38	1046
BA Burton Ale	130	43	1044.6
BBA Strong Ale	154	51	1059
Sources:
Suffolk and Essex Free Press - Thursday 18 December 1924, page 1.
Greene King brewing records held at the brewery, document numbers AC93/1/1.

Interesting that Greene King still had a Stout and a couple of Strong Ales on draught. Even more unusually they brewed three Stouts.

Draught Stout and Extra Stout are obviously the same beer. Special Stout really was pretty strong - 1065.4º. There was also an Oatmeal Stout at 1044º. With, as was traditional in most of the UK, bugger all oats in it.

Greene King Burton Ale

Burton Ale wasn't a style confined to just London. There were brewers outside the capital (and Burton-on-Trent) who brewed one. I know that from, amonst other evidence, old beer labels.

It wasn't until I stumbled upon this advert that Greene King had a draught as well as a bottled Burton Ale. Which is intriguing. Especially as it sold for the same price - 1s 3d - as their Best Bitter.

Bury Free Press - Friday 20 May 1949, page 11.

The question I immediately asked myself was: how strong were Greene King Burton and Best Burton? Time to scan my spreadsheets and take a look at their brewing records.

Unfortunately, I don't have records from spring 1949, just late 1948 and January 1949. Which is just that little bit too early. I'm hoping that the relevant brewing book is one of the ones Henry photographed. And that I will eventually get the pictures off him.

On the upside, I do have quite a few analyses of Green King beers from just a little later. Combining all of this, I've got a pretty good idea of the character of their beers.

Let's take a look at their bottled range first:

Greene King bottled beers 1954 - 1960
Year	Beer	Style	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour	Index of Hop Bitter
1960	Burton Ale	Brown Ale	20	1033.4	1011.7	2.80	64.97%		16
1956	Harvest Brown Ale	Brown Ale	22	1035.2	1013.9	2.75	60.51%	105
1959	India Pale Ale	IPA	20	1033.3	1010	3.02	69.97%	25
1960	India Pale Ale	IPA	20	1033	1007.7	3.16	76.67%	25
1960	India Pale Ale	IPA	20	1033.2	1008.5	3.20	74.40%		24
1960	Lager	Lager		1034.9	1006.4	3.56	81.66%	9.5
1960	Abbot Ale	Pale Ale	30	1048.6	1006.7	5.24	86.21%	19
1954	Stout	Stout	19	1034.3	1012.7	2.79	62.97%	450
1954	Sweet Stout	Stout	26	1046.6	1020.3	3.39	56.44%	450
1960	Suffolk Ale	Strong Ale	34	1056.8	1015.7	5.14	72.36%	70
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002
Which Beer Report, 1960, pages 171 - 173.

What first strikes me about their bottled Burton Ale is that it looks more like a Brown Ale than a London Burton. It's called BA in the brewing records and, had I not known they brewed a beer called  Burton, I would have assumed that it stood for Brown Ale.

From the brewing records, I know that in late 1948 all three of the bottled beers listed, Stout, IPA and Burton Ale, all had an identical OG: 11.1 lbs per barrel, or 1031º. By 1960 that had increased a few degrees to 1033-1034º. They had also expanded their bottled range, which included a higher OG Stout and a stronger Pale Ale in the form of Abbot Ale.

Index of hop bitterness, if you're wondering, seems to be about the same as IBUs. The figure of 16 certainly tallies with what you'd expect from a Brown Ale. London Burton Ales were more heavily hopped than that.

Now their draught beers:

Greene King draught beers 1954 - 1960
Year	Beer	Style	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour	Index of Hop Bitter
1960	Mild	Mild	12	1030.7	1006.05	3.20	80.29%		18
1960	Abbot Ale	Pale Ale	22	1051.3	1007.9	5.43	84.60%	20
1960	Best Bitter	Pale Ale	15	1038.4	1007.4	3.88	80.73%	20
1960	Bitter	Pale Ale	15	1037.0	1006.25	4.00	83.11%		33
1960	Ordinary Bitter	Pale Ale	13	1033.9	1005.7	3.53	83.19%	26
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002
Which Beer Report, 1960, pages 171 - 173.

Note that the draught beer prices are the same as in 1949. The explanation is that the tax had decreased between 1949 and 1960. Though it also seems that draught Best Burton had disappeared. But, given that it cost the same price as Best Bitter, I'm guessing that its OG was around 1038º. Which is more like a Best Mild than a London Burton. Even in the darkest days of post-war austerity, London Burton had a gravity of over 1040º.

Though it was called IPA Cask within the brewery, the trade name seems to have been plain old Bitter. I wonder when they started calling the draught version IPA in pubs?