1970s Special Bitter

You can see how far I've got in my book "Keg!". Just about all the way through draught Bitter. I'm cracking on so well, that almost all that's left are the annoying bits I need to research more. 

 Though I did remember that I have all those technical brewing journals from the 1970s. Ones I've never really looked at. Full of rabbit holes, I'm sure.But, what the hell? I' retired. Time is one thing I've loads of. At least for now.

Only one type of Bitter left: Special Bitter. Not as many of these, as by no means every brewery produced one.

A slightly lower degree of attenuation than in the other types of Bitter. Though the high gravities mean that all are above 4% ABV. And Fremlin County Ale manages to just top 5% ABV.

The hopping rate per quarter (336 lbs) of malt, at 5.5 lbs, is the highest, by a shade, of all the Bitter types. No shock, then, that the bitterness levels are also the highest, though only very slightly.

A couple of the beers have very dark colours for the style. Especially Abbey Ale which is darker than some Milds. Though a particularly pale Ben Truman keeps the average colour around the same as for Best Bitter. 

Special Bitter 1969 - 1981
Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	colour	IBU
1971	Shepherd Neame	Abbey Ale	1044.3	1014.0	4.01	68.41%	5.59	1.05	50	28
1981	Eldridge Pope	Royal Oak	1048.2	1013.9	4.54	71.26%	4.33	0.74	40	20
1969	Truman	Ben Truman	1046.8	1010.0	4.87	78.70%	4.13	0.76	16	18
1969	Fremlin	County Ale	1049.5	1011.5	5.03	76.77%	7.99	1.45	26*	41
	Average		1047.2	1012.3	4.61	73.79%	5.51	1.00	33.0	26.8
Sources:
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery, Brewing book 1971 H-5O5.
Eldridge Pope brewing record.
Truman brewing record held by Derek Prentice.
Fremlin brewing record held at the Kent Arrchives, document number U3555/2/F/Bx2/1/93.
Note:
Colour and IBU values marked with * were taken from brewery sources rather than calculated.

Light Ale hops 1968 - 1984

We’ll end with the hops, of which there are also loads. Every beer contains at least two different types. While most have three or more.

There was a reason for this: so that when the supply of one hop ran out, it’s replacement wouldn’t alter the flavour of the beer too much. The Watney Mann Quality manual insists that at least three different growths be used in all beers.

The vast majority of the hops were English. Which is what you would expect in this period, when the UK was pretty much self-sufficient in hops. The only foreign hops are two lots of Styrian and one of British Columbian.

Where specified, the English hops are all from Kent or Worcester. Which makes sense as these were the largest hop-producing regions.

As for the varieties, most would likely have been Fuggles or Goldings, simply because they were the most produced types. At least at the start of the period.

Later, Northern Brewer, Bramling Cross, Bullion, Wye Northdown and Wye Challenger became more prominent. The Watney Mann Quality Manual states that no more than a third of the hops should be of these new varieties. The remainder being Fuggles or Goldings.     

Light Ale hops 1968 - 1984
Year	Brewer	Beer	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3	hop 4	hop 5
1977	Adnams	LBA	English	English	English
1971	Boddington	Bod	English	English
1984	Eldridge Pope	BAK	English	English	English	English	Styrian
1968	Fullers	LA	Worcester 1967	EK 1966	Styrian 1967
1972	Shepherd Neame	LA	Kent 1970	Kent 1971	Kent 1972
1969	Truman	LK	English 1967	English 1967	English 1968	British Colombia 1967
Sources:
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery.
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/134.
Eldridge Pope brewing record.
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.
Shepherd Neame brewing book held at the brewery, document number 1971 H-5O5.
Truman brewing record held by Derek Prentice.

Light Ale sugars 1968 - 1984

Loads and loads of sugars. Two full tables worth. Starting with the ones I understand.

Malt extract was a surprisingly popular ingredient. Unlike other sugars, it was added in the mash tun, not the copper. For the simple reason that it was there for extra enzymes. Something many UK brewers worried about after WW II. Note that the quantities in the Fullers and Shepherd Neame examples are tiny.

Next, it’s the invert sugars: No. 1 and No. 3. Now, the former, being very pale, is exactly what you would expect in a Style like Light Ale. But No. 3? That’s just odd. Especially in the quantity found in the Shepherd Neame beer, 11%. Which explains why it’s by far the darkest in colour of the set.

It’s interesting that glucose and fructose, the component parts of invert sugar, appear in beers which also include a numbered invert. Not sure what the point of that would be. Possibly because it was paler in colour than the numbered sugars, even No. 1.

Finally, cane sugar. Which I assume means raw cane sugar. Making it the simplest of all the sugars used.

Now for the difficult bit: all the weird proprietary sugars.

I’ve little idea what any of them are. Wortex seems to be a wort extender, which would be a combination of invert sugar and maltose.

Caramel. I know what that is. Though not something you’d expect to see much of it in a style like Light Ale.  And, it this case, that’s all there is. A tiny amount, presumably for colour correction. 

Light Ale sugars 1968 - 1984
Year	Brewer	Beer	malt extract	no. 1 sugar	no. 3 sugar	glucose	fructose	cane
1977	Adnams	LBA		15.03%			11.28%
1971	Boddington	Bod	5.36%
1984	Eldridge Pope	BAK
1968	Fullers	LA	0.65%		1.94%	1.29%
1972	Shepherd Neame	LA	0.55%		10.93%
1969	Truman	LK						7.85%
Sources:
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery.
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/134.
Eldridge Pope brewing record.
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.
Shepherd Neame brewing book held at the brewery, document number 1971 H-5O5.
Truman brewing record held by Derek Prentice.

Light Ale proprietary sugars 1968 - 1984
Year	Brewer	Beer	Fla	Br	Flowsweet	PEX	Wortex	caramel
1977	Adnams	LBA						0.40%
1971	Boddington	Bod	4.29%	4.29%
1984	Eldridge Pope	BAK			8.96%
1968	Fullers	LA				1.29%
1972	Shepherd Neame	LA					6.56%
1969	Truman	LK
Sources:
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery.
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/134.
Eldridge Pope brewing record.
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.
Shepherd Neame brewing book held at the brewery, document number 1971 H-5O5.
Truman brewing record held by Derek Prentice.

Light Ale in the 1970s

Time to look at some Light Ales in more detail. That most unfashionable of styles.

There’s not a great deal of variation in the gravities: only just over 3º. Which isn’t a great surprise in beers of such a low gravity. Though there’s a way larger spread in ABV, due to hugely differing degrees of attenuation: from 66% to 91%.

This leaves alcohol levels varying from 2.6% ABV to 3.9%. Which, considering the beers were a similar price, means some were way better value than others. With the weakest being barely intoxicating.

A lacking of consistency is also evident in the hopping rates. The highest, 7.5 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) in the Adnams example, is Almost double that of Eldridge Pope’s beer. Though that isn’t totally reflected in the IBU level.

Speaking of which, the values in the table are calculated with brewing software and so should not be taken as gospel, more a general indication. As there are too many unknown variables in some brews, such as the variety and age of the hops.

Similar caution should be taken of the colours, most of which, again, are calculated via brewing software. Only the Boddington and Truman values were taken from the brewing record. 

Light Ale 1968 - 1984
Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	colour	IBU
1977	Adnams	LBA	1032.0	1011.0	2.78	65.63%	7.56	0.81	22	24
1971	Boddington	Bod	1032.5	1003.0	3.90	90.77%	5.71	0.90	13	28
1984	Eldridge Pope	BAK	1032.7	1005.0	3.66	84.75%	4.00	0.54	24	25
1968	Fullers	LA	1032.2	1010.2	2.90	68.13%	6.08	0.86	22	30
1972	Shepherd Neame	LA	1029.4	1009.5	2.63	67.65%	5.19	0.66	35	16
1969	Truman	LK	1030.7	1004.7	3.44	84.68%	5.32	0.63	21	17
	Average		1031.6	1007.2	3.22	76.93%	5.64	0.73	22.8	23.3
Sources:
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery.
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/134.
Eldridge Pope brewing record.
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.
Shepherrd Neame brewing book held at the brewery, document number 1971 H-5O5.
Truman brewing record held by Derek Prentice.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1971 Shepherd Neame Bishop's Finger

I polished off the Shepherd Neame recipes for "Keg!" yesterday. Including this little number.

Finally, we’re at the top end of the one Pale Ale parti-gyle: Bishop’s Finger. It seems to have been first brewed sometime in the first half of the 1960s.

The brewery bills it as a Strong Ale. Though, given the way it was parti-gyled with SXX and Light Ale, it could easily pass for an ESB. I suppose it was all down to what the brewery thought would sell better. And it was exclusively bottled, which would tilt against the term “Bitter”.

Like the Abbey Ale parti-gyle, there’s more base malt and less of the other malts and adjunct. Though, in contrast to Abbey Ale, the hopping rate is the same as for the base parti-gyle. That is, 4.5 lbs of hops per quarter (336 lbs) of malt.

There’s a slight difference in the hopping, in that the 1969 vintage was now kept in a cold store. 

1971 Shepherd Neame Bishop's Finger
pale malt	6.25 lb	58.58%
amber malt	0.67 lb	6.28%
crystal malt 60 L	0.67 lb	6.28%
wheat malt	0.50 lb	4.69%
flaked maize	0.50 lb	4.69%
No. 3 invert sugar	1.25 lb	11.72%
No. 1 invert sugar	0.75 lb	7.03%
malt extract	0.08 lb	0.75%
Fuggles 105 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1053
FG	1017
ABV	4.76
Apparent attenuation	67.92%
IBU	30
SRM	14
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	105 minutes
pitching temp	63º F
Yeast	WLP007 Dry English Ale

Shepherd Neame sugars in 1971

Next, we’re taking look at the sugars.

You can see that Shepherd Neame was one of the brewers who threw some malt extract into the mash tun. Presumably, to add extra diastatic power. I’m not sure it was really necessary. It seems to have been a sort of safety net for nervous brewers.

It’s odd to see No. 3 invert turning up in beers like Light Ale. Beers you would expect to be quite pale. Whereas you would expect to, and do, find it in the Mild and Brown Ale. Here, it appears in everything except the one Pale Ale parti-gyle.

And that’s about where my understanding of the sugars ends. Everything other than the Brown Ale/Mild parti-gyle included something called Wortex. What was it? I don’t rightly know. But, given the beers it appears in, I doubt it had much colour.

Whereas the UKCS in the dark beers probably was quite dark. My guess is that the “CS” stands for caramel syrup. And, certainly, that assumption helps to give the finished beers the expected colour.

WSI? Possibly some sort of Special Invert? That’s about the best guess I can come up with.

I won’t bother with a table for the hops. All the beers contained the same two types, both from the brewery’s own hop gardens, one from the 1968 harvest and the other from 1970. 

Shepherd Neame sugars in 1971
Beer	Style	malt extract	no. 3 sugar	Wortex	UKCS	WSI	caramel	total sugar
Brown Ale	Brown Ale	0.80%	9.61%		9.61%	6.41%	1.49%	27.92%
Mild	Mild	0.80%	9.61%		9.61%	6.41%	1.49%	27.92%
Light Ale	Pale Ale	0.92%	11.01%	5.50%				17.43%
Bitter	Pale Ale	0.99%		6.93%				7.92%
Best Bitter	Pale Ale	1.10%		6.59%				7.69%
Abbey Ale	Pale Ale	0.64%	12.74%	6.37%				19.75%
Old English Stock Ale	Pale Ale	0.92%	11.01%	5.50%				17.43%
Bishop's Finger	Strong Ale	0.71%	11.35%	7.09%				19.15%
Stout	Stout		6.12%				2.04%	8.16%
Source:
Shepherd Neame brewing book held at the brewery, document number H-5O5.

Shepherd Neame grists in 1971

Time to look at what went into these beers. Starting off with the malts and adjuncts.

Pale malt was the only base employed. Nothing very unusual about that. More uncommon is the presence of crystal malt in every single beer. Which was a bit of a turnaround. Because up until at least 1966, they didn’t use crystal malt at all.

Even more odd is the presence of amber malt in one of the Pale Ale parti-gyles. It’s not a malt you’d usually find in a Pale Ale. In fact, you rarely see it in anything other than Porter and Stout. And then mostly before WW I.

I’m not 100% that the wheat was in malted form. It’s not clear from the brewing record. Though, as it just says “wheat” and not “flaked wheat” but it does say “flaked maize”. I assume wheat is there for its head-promoting properties.

Speaking of which, it’s a little strange that flaked maize only appears in the one Pale Ale parti-gyle. And not in the Mild and Brown Ale. Looking back through the logs, it’s another ingredient which was only introduced sometime after 1966. 

Shepherd Neame grists in 1971
Beer	Style	pale malt	amber malt	crystal malt	wheat malt	total malt	flaked maize
Brown Ale	Brown Ale	67.28%		4.81%		72.08%
Mild	Mild	67.28%		4.81%		72.08%
Light Ale	Pale Ale	60.55%	5.50%	5.50%	5.50%	77.06%	5.50%
Bitter	Pale Ale	84.65%		7.43%		92.08%
Best Bitter	Pale Ale	84.07%		8.24%		92.31%
Abbey Ale	Pale Ale	61.15%	5.73%	5.73%	3.82%	76.43%	3.82%
Old English Stock Ale	Pale Ale	60.55%	5.50%	5.50%	5.50%	77.06%	5.50%
Bishop's Finger	Strong Ale	59.57%	6.38%	6.38%	4.26%	76.60%	4.26%
Stout	Stout	85.71%		6.12%		91.84%
Source:
Shepherd Neame brewing book held at the brewery, document number H-5O5.

A busy week

Though I haven't been performing paid work for almost four years now, that doesn't mean I'm idle.

I was going to say that I write every day. But that's not quite true. Some days are fully occupied by research. 

Like this week. Much of which was spent going through Shepherd Neame's brewing records from 1971. A process which was slightly more complicated than I expected. And left me with some dilemmas. Like what do I do with the primings. And then there was the weird Stout parti-gyle.

It's nice to not be in a rush. To have the time to spend on proper research. Which is something I genuinely enjoy. Despite the tedium of extracting details from dozens of brewing records.

In this way, every week is a busy week for me. Which is good. It stops me just vegetating now paid employment is but a distant memory.

Shepherd Neame beers in 1971

I’d been struggling quite a bit with some of the Shepherd Neame beers. Trying to work out what the hell they were.

I spent quite a while trying to find a price list in the newspaper archive. No luck. A partial answer finally came when I scoured Frank Baillie’s “The Beer Drinker’s Companion”. Which has a pretty complete list of most brewers’ beers.

The one that really had me stumped was SXX. Which I couldn’t decide if it was a Strong Ale, Pale Ale or Old Ale. I now know it was called “Old English Stock Ale”. Though that doesn’t really make the style much clearer. But I’m pretty sure now it was a Pale Ale.

There’s still some confusion, though, when I try to map these beers onto those in the 1978 Good Beer Guide. Which lists Bitter at 1036º, Best Bitter at 1039º and Stock Ale at 1038º. So where does that leave BB? I’m guessing that it was the Light Mild mentioned by Frank Baillie.

Leaving aside what the brewery marketed these beers as. Let’s look at what they were like.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of Brown Ales I’ve found in brewing records. Often, they are invisible shadow beers. Conjured up from Dark Mild at bottling time. OK, the one here was parti-gyled with Mild, but it was its own distinct brew. And a particularly watery one at quite a few degrees below 1030º. This is one of the better-attenuated examples. Many had FGs of 1008º or 1009º.

The Mild is at least over 3% ABV. Not exactly rocket fuel, but at least vaguely intoxicating. A low hopping rate of just 3 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt was employed. If you flick back to Boddington or forward to Whitbread, you’ll see that hopped at 4.5 lbs to 5 lbs per quarter.

The Pale Ale analogue of Brown Ale, Light Ale, is also below 1030º and 3% ABV. Though with a slightly hopping rate of 4 lbs per quarter of malt.

Obviously, there was a lot of parti-gyling going on with the Pale Ales. Abbey Ale, Bishop’s Finger, Old English Stock Ale and Light Ale were brewed together in various combinations. Though the hopping rate was higher when Abbey Ale was involved.

Bishop’s Finger, despite being billed as a Strong Ale, is really just a very strong Bitter. Nothing wrong with that. It and Abbey Ale were only available in bottled form. Though there does appear to have been a keg version of the latter.

There was a second Pale Ale parti-gyle of BB and PA. Separate, presumably, because the hopping rate was higher.

The weirdest parti-gyle was for the Stout. Which, in a brew with Mild and Brown Ale, was given its own copper with different sugars. In a slightly obscure process.

Overall, the rate of attenuation isn’t great. The beers I chose were mostly the best-attenuated examples. Many were under 70%. And an average of all the beers I’ve photographed came out just barely over 70%. 

Shepherd Neame beers in 1971
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
Brown Ale	Brown Ale	1026.3	1005.5	2.75	79.10%	3.07	0.35
Mild	Mild	1031.3	1007	3.21	77.64%	3.07	0.41
Light Ale	Pale Ale	1029.4	1008	2.83	72.75%	4.12	0.52
Bitter	Pale Ale	1030.2	1007.5	3.00	75.16%	5.73	0.71
Best Bitter	Pale Ale	1036.3	1008.5	3.68	76.58%	5.98	0.89
Abbey Ale	Pale Ale	1044.3	1014	4.01	68.41%	5.59	1.05
Old English Stock Ale	Pale Ale	1039.3	1009	4.01	77.12%	4.21	0.69
Bishop's Finger	Strong Ale	1052.6	1017	4.71	67.70%	4.52	1.12
Stout	Stout	1032.1	1011.5	2.73	64.21%	1.33	0.18
Source:
Shepherd Neame brewing book held at the brewery, document number H-5O5.