Let's Brew Wednesday - 1893 Bentley IPA

Isn’t this exciting? A Yorkshire IPA. And one which might even satisfy a style nazi of today.

With an OG of 1064º, it’s a full-strength Pale Ale. Though a not too great level of attenuation leaves it a shade under 6% ABV. That’s the racking gravity. I’m sure the real FG was lower.

There’s not a great deal to the recipe. Just two types of pale malt, one English, the other Middle Eastern. Along with some sugar which is only described as “Garton”.  As they were a big invert sugar producer, I’ve guessed for No. 1. As I assume they were trying to keep the beer pale.

Interestingly, there are no adjuncts. By this time, most brewers had adopted adjuncts, usually in the form of flaked maize.

There were three types of copper hops: Hallertau from the 1892 harvest along with Kent from 1892 and 1886.  It’s weird to see hops as old as that in a fancy Pale Ale. The dry hops were Kent from the 1892 season. 

1893 Bentley IPA
pale malt	9.75 lb	77.23%
No. 1 invert sugar	2.875 lb	22.77%
Fuggles 110 mins	2.50 oz
Fuggles 90 mins	2.50 oz
Hallertau 30 mins	2.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1064
FG	1019
ABV	5.95
Apparent attenuation	70.31%
IBU	84
SRM	8
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	110 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

 

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1904 Tetley XX

Tetley’s brewhouse use of Xs is dead confusing. After the four X Ales, we now have an XX.

Is this Tetley’s strongest Mild Ale? I’m not totally sure. True, it’s parti-gyled with X3 Mild. But I’ve seen beers marketed as Strong Ales or Burton Ales that were parti-gyled with Mild Ales. Does it matter if it was sold as Old Ale/Strong Ale or Mild Ale? Not really.

Not much to discuss about the recipe, as this was brewed together with the X3 above. Just over 100 barrels of each were in the parti-gyle. Which is a decent quantity for stronger beers. Though there were fewer brews than for the weaker Mild Ales.

Being stronger than X3, the colour is darker. Hitting a classic Dark Mild colour of around 20 SRM.
 

1904 Tetley XX
pale malt	5.25 lb	41.58%
mild malt	5.50 lb	43.56%
No. 3 invert sugar	1.75 lb	13.86%
Caramel 1000 SRM	0.13 lb	0.99%
Fuggles 120 mins	2.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	2.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1072
FG	1017
ABV	7.28
Apparent attenuation	76.39%
IBU	53
SRM	21
Mash at	151º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

 

Let's Brew - 1904 Tetley X2

And here we are with the non-pale version of X2. Quite different from X2 Pale but also not the same as X1.

What’s the difference? Grits. While X and X1 both contain a very high proportion of grits. While X2 has none. In its place, there’s rather more mild malt. Almost as much mild malt as pale malt. Along with some sugar. All in all, a rather simple grist.

The hopping is much heavier than in X1: 7lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt compared to 4 lbs. That’s quite a big difference. Though it’s well short of the 12.5 lbs per quarter which graced Tetley’s Pale Ale.

And what were those hops? Worcester, Kent and Mid-Kent. All from the 1903 harvest. 

1904 Tetley X2
pale malt	5.25 lb	44.42%
mild malt	5.00 lb	42.30%
brown sugar	1.50 lb	12.69%
Caramel 1000 SRM	0.07 lb	0.59%
Fuggles 120 mins	1.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.75 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1057
FG	1014
ABV	5.69
Apparent attenuation	75.44%
IBU	41
SRM	14
Mash at	151º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

 

 

 

Let's Brew - 1904 Tetley K

I’m pretty convinced now that this is a type of Pale Ale. Specifically, a Light Bitter. It does, after all, have the classic 1045º

There have been a couple of changes to K since 1888. For a start, it’s lost 4º of gravity. Which is sort of what you would expect. There was a general downward trend in gravities in this period.

The grist has also changed, moving away all malt by including some No. 2 invert sugar. Though the malts remain a combination of pale and mild malt.

For a Pale ale, the hopping rate was relatively light, at 7.75 lbs per quarter (336 lbs). Which was slightly less than the strongest Mild Ales, X3 and XX.

As for the hops, they were all English. Worcester from the 1902 harvest and Kent from 1902 and 1903. 

1904 Tetley K
pale malt	5.25 lb	55.26%
mild malt	3.00 lb	31.58%
No. 2 invert sugar	1.25 lb	13.16%
Fuggles 120 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1045
FG	1008
ABV	4.89
Apparent attenuation	82.22%
IBU	38
SRM	7
Mash at	153º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1904 Tetley X

At this point, Tetley had two parallel sets of Mild Ales. The standard ones and ones with the suffix “Pale”. This is one of the former.

You might have expected this to be similar to the pale version, just with more caramel. But it isn’t. The grist is, in reality, rather different. For a start, around a third of it consists of grits. Something totally absent from the pale version. It seems to substitute for a good chunk of the mild malt.

The sugar is different, too. “M. Brazilian” rather than the “RC(3)” in the pale. I’ve interpreted it as being a type of raw cane sugar. There’s also rather more caramel in this version.

There’s just a single type of Kent hops. I’ve guessed Fuggles. Which seems fair enough for a Mild. At a lower hopping rate than for Pale: 4.25 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt compared to 5.75 lbs.

1904 Tetley X
pale malt	2.50 lb	31.33%
mild malt	1.50 lb	18.80%
grits	2.67 lb	33.46%
brown sugar	1.25 lb	15.66%
Caramel 1000 SRM	0.06 lb	0.75%
Fuggles 120 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1039
FG	1009
ABV	3.97
Apparent attenuation	76.92%
IBU	19
SRM	12
Mash at	149º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

 

Let's Brew - 1895 Rose Stout

Finally, we come to the one Black Beer in Rose’s portfolio. A Stout.

It’s not the strongest Stout I’ve ever seen. In fact, it’s not much stronger than a London Porter at only 5.5% ABV. But, hey-ho, it’s reasonably dark and bitter, which is something.

As always, the Stout has the most complex grist. With three different malts: pale, black and crystal. Not exactly the same as a London grist, as there’s no brown malt. Though that was pretty typical outside the capital. The grist is rounded off with a little flaked maize. Oh yes, almost half of the black malt was added to the copper, not the mash tun.

There were two types of sugar, “White” and D. M. I. The former I’ve assumed is sucrose. And for the latter I’ve substituted No. 3 invert. Oh, and there was quite a lot of caramel, too. Obviously, for colour.

There were three types of copper hops: Sussex from the 1894 season, Californian from 1893 and Worcester from 1895. The dry hops were Californian from.1894, which is odd. Usually, American hops weren’t used for dry hopping as UK brewers weren’t keen on their flavour.

I doubt that this was aged at all, given its rather modest gravity. 

1895 Rose Stout
pale malt	9.50 lb	71.03%
crystal malt 60 L	0.875 lb	6.54%
black malt	0.75 lb	5.61%
flaked maize	0.875 lb	6.54%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.25 lb	1.87%
white sugar	0.875 lb	6.54%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.25 lb	1.87%
Fuggles 145 mins	1.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.33 oz
OG	1061
FG	1019.5
ABV	5.49
Apparent attenuation	68.03%
IBU	54
SRM	36
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	175º F
Boil time	145 minutes
pitching temp	58.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1898 Rose IPA

Here we are then. At the Pale Ale pinnacle. A beer called IPA. Which, in itself, is fascinating. Because it’s a case where a brewery’s IPA is stronger than their Pale Ale. Which was by no means always the case.

The grist is much the same as for the other Pale Ales. Just base malt, flakes and sugar. Though, in this case, those flakes are maize rather than rice. Not sure if that’s a deliberate choice or just random. The percentage of malt from foreign barley is lower at just 15%.

It just says “invert” in the brewing record, but I’m pretty sure it’s No. 1 invert. And the remainder is listed as sucrose. Which is nice and simple.

In this case, the three types of hops are all English. One from the 1897 harvest and the other two from 1896. No indication of origin, unfortunately.
 

1898 Rose IPA
pale malt	11.00 lb	84.10%
flaked maize	1.00 lb	7.65%
No. 1 invert sugar	0.75 lb	5.73%
white sugar	0.33 lb	2.52%
Fuggles 150 mins	1.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	1.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.75 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1060
FG	1016
ABV	5.82
Apparent attenuation	73.33%
IBU	66
SRM	6
Mash at	154º F
Sparge at	172º F
Boil time	220 minutes
pitching temp	58.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

 

Let's Brew - 1895 Rose PA

Climbing ever higher up the Pale Ale tree we get to, er, Pale Ale. A pretty decent strength. If not quite at the heights of a Burton Pale Ale.

As with the other Pale Ales from Rose, there’s not a great deal to the grist. Just base malt, flaked rice and sugar. Once again, with around a quarter of the malt made from foreign barley, the rest from English.

Two types of sugar, No. 1 invert and something just described as “White”, which I’ve interpreted as sucrose. Combined with the pale malt, all this basically colourless sugar leaves the beer with a very light shade. Just 5 SRM. Which is extremely pale for a beer of this gravity.

As always with Rose, there are three types of hops, Kent, Worcester and Hallertau, all from the 1895 harvest. As were the Hallertau dry hops.

My guess is that this was a semi-Stock beer, aged for three months or so. 

1895 Rose PA
pale malt	10.25 lb	84.85%
flaked rice	0.75 lb	6.21%
No. 1 invert sugar	0.75 lb	6.21%
white sugar	0.33 lb	2.73%
Fuggles 130 mins	1.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	1.50 oz
Hallertau 30 mins	1.50 oz
Hallertau dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1055
FG	1015
ABV	5.29
Apparent attenuation	72.73%
IBU	55
SRM	5
Mash at	154º F
Sparge at	175º F
Boil time	145 minutes
pitching temp	58º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1895 Rose B

You'd better get used to the late Victorian and Edwardian period. Because I'm now 100% concentrating on that, as I return to working on "Free!".

And now we move onto our second gravity tree, this time for Pale Ales. Of which there are four.

Kicking off with B. Which I assume stands for “Bitter”. It’s pretty low gravity for a 19th-century Pale Ale. A Light Bitter, really. I would say that it’s the equivalent of an AK. Except that Rose has an AK in their range. A beer next up the strength tree trunk.

Beautifully simple is how I would describe the grist. Just base malt, flaked rice and sucrose. There were three types of pale malt, two made from English barley and one from foreign. Which, as you’re probably aware by now, was pretty standard.

Three types of hops, too. Two English, Worcester from the 1895 harvest and Kent from 1894. Both of which I’ve interpreted as Fuggles. Along with Hallertau from 1894.

As a Light Bitter, this wouldn’t have been aged. As is obvious from the gravity and hopping rate. 

1895 Rose B
pale malt	9.00 lb	85.71%
flaked rice	1.00 lb	9.52%
white sugar	0.50 lb	4.76%
Fuggles 135 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.75 oz
Hallertau 30 mins	0.75 oz
Hallertau dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1046
FG	1013
ABV	4.37
Apparent attenuation	71.74%
IBU	29
SRM	4
Mash at	154º F
Sparge at	175º F
Boil time	125 minutes
pitching temp	59º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Timothy Taylor

Train

“How many photos did you take of railway stations, Dad?” Alexei asks.

“A few.”

“No wonder you were lagging so far behind us in York.”

“It was because I’m old.”

“Always that excuse.”

“It is impressive, though, York station.” 

“I suppose so.”

“Though so is the pub. Just like in Sheffield: right in the station.”

“That was handy.”

“They should try doing that in Holland.”

“They do. At least in Amsterdam Centraal.”

“But they don’t sell cask bee. They don’t count.”

“Keep moving the goalposts, Dad.”

“Thank you.”

“I bet you took loads of photos of the beer pumps.”

“Not really. Only a couple.”
 

“Did you take any photos other than pubs?”

“I took some of the station.”

“Anything else?”

“One or two of the city walls.”

“And that’s it?”

“What else is there in York?”

“I bet the pub photos are dead boring. Just all blokes sitting around”

“Not all of them.”

“Well, that one is.”

“There are only a few like that.”

“I bet the rest are all your beers.”

“Not all of them’”

“You keep saying that.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“What else do you have pictures of, then?”

“The pies we ate in the Maltings.”

“You mean the stew with a lid?”

“You’ve been listening to Andrew, haven’t you? He’s a real pie Nazi.”

“It did taste OK, I suppose.”

He’s not wrong there. It wasn’t a bad pie at all.

“Do you have any photos from the other pub?”

“A few.”

“Old blokes sitting about?”

“Only us lot: me, Dave, Henry and Paul.”

“Beer pumps?”

“Er, maybe one or two.”

“And that’s it, is it?”

“Well, there are some photos of pints, too.”

“How exciting”

“One has yours and Andrew’s pints of cider. Doesn’t that make you thirsty? It does me.”

“For cider?”

“No, for the lovely cask beer in front of it.”

“Always on about that cask crap.”

“The best beer in the world.”

“Yeah, right. Is that everything for York?”

“Just about. There are some more of the York Tap.”

“More beer pumps?”

“Not . . . “

“. . . all of them. You keep claiming that.”

“Only because it’s true.”

“Right”

“I got some nice photos of the stained-glass windows. Look.”

“More old blokes sitting around?”

“Not just old blokes. There are some younger people. Even women.”

“Photos of anything else?”

“Yes. Some trains.”

“What a surprise.”

“Do you want to see them?”

“Do I have to?”

“I bet Andrew would like to see them.”

“Then show them to him.”

“OK. I will do. Andrew!”

“Oh. It’s that type 47 at Newark Northgate.”
 

Rose processes in 1896

Let’s take a look at some of the processes now. Beginning with the mashing scheme.

The scheme in the table below is specifically for a Light Bitter, though those for all the other beers were basically the same.

With a single infusion mash followed by an underlet and multiple sparges, it’s a pretty standard late-19th century English scheme. The underlet essentially turning it into a type of step mash. The temperatures also look pretty standard.

Moving on, we’ll look at boiling at fermentation.

The boil times are a little on the long side, but not stupidly excessive. In general, boil times were between 1.5 and 2.5 hours.

Pitching temperatures look pretty standard, at 60º F for the weakest beers and a few degrees lower for the stronger ones. Most interesting are the maximum temperatures, which are in a very narrow range of 66º F to 67 º F. That wasn’t by accident. As the temperature was maintained at that level for all but the first two days. Presumably through the use of attemperators.

As for the length of fermentation it’s a little bit on the long side, times generally being a day or two shorter, Probably, because they kept the temperature quite low during fermentation. At most breweries, it would be allowed to rise to the low 70sº F. 

19th October 1895 Rose AK
action	barrels	strike heat	time stood (minutes)	tap heat
mash	22	162º F	15	149º F
underlet	4	180º F	120	154º F
sparge 1	12	175º F
sparge 2	12	170º F
sparge 3	10	165º F
sparge 4	10	160º F		160º F
Source:
Rose brewing record held at the North Yorkshire County Record Office, catalogue number ZDI.

Rose boiling and fermentation in 1896
Beer	Style	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fermentation temp	length of fermentation (days)
M	Mild	2	60º F	66º F	7
X	Mild	2.17	59.5º F	66º F	8
XX	Mild	2.17	58.5º F	66º F	8
XXX	Mild	2.17	58.25º F	66º F	8
XXXX	Mild	2.33	58º F	67º F	8
B	Pale Ale	2.17	60º F	66.5º F	8
AK	Pale Ale	2.25	59º F	66º F	8
IPA	IPA	2.33	58.5º F
PA	Pale Ale	2.17	59º F	67º F	8
Stout	Stout	2.25	58.5º F	67º F	8
Source:
Rose brewing record held at the North Yorkshire County Record Office, catalogue number ZDI.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1985 Tetley Falstaff

I never drank this beer. Despite it being brewed in the town where I lived.

Tetley also produced a Light Mild in their Hunslet brewery. Not that I can ever remember it being sold in Leeds. Maybe it was for the bits of West Yorkshire where they liked their Mild pale.*

I seem to remember it being a keg-only beer. It only appears in the Good Beer Guide from the early 1980s. I suppose that’s when they started selling some in cask form.

The recipe isn’t hugely different from Mild. It’s 0.5º higher in gravity. And the sugar is different – ERC 4ths. No idea what that was. As this is a beer meant to be pale, I’ve substituted No. 1 invert.

There are a few more hops, as the bitterness level was higher. About halfway between Mild and Bitter. Which has me thinking. This is a bit like mixed – Mild and Bitter in equal quantities. Just a little paler than that combination.

There was less “sterilised beer” than in the Mild added after fermentation, just 7.5% maximum.

For a change, this isn't an excerpt from a recently-published book. It's from the one I'm currently working on, "Keg!". A laugh a minute look at UK beer in the 1970s. Which will be available when I finish it. 

 

* Let me know if I'm talking out of my arse here.

1985 Tetley Falstaff
pale malt	5.25 lb	77.55%
torrefied barley	0.50 lb	7.39%
No. 1 invert sugar	1.00 lb	14.77%
caramel 2000 SRM	0.02 lb	0.30%
Fuggles 90 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	0.50 oz
Northdown dry hops	0.125 oz
OG	1032.5
FG	1006.5
ABV	3.44
Apparent attenuation	80.00%
IBU	27
SRM	7.5
Mash at	146º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	63º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale

 

Can you learn too much?

Just been thinking about one of my favourite beers, ever: Tetley's Mild. A beer I adored in those far off days of my youth. When my legs still obeyed and my lungs weren't fucked.

We have to mention univacs/economisers here. The devices that recycled beer from the drip tray.

I was used to electric dispense when I arrived in Leeds as a scruffy student in 1975. It was almost universal in the Midlands, for both cask and bright beer. (An annoyance right there. Metered electric pumps were ambiguous, being used for both cask and bright beer.) Seeing cask Tetley's dispensed that way wasn't a surprise.

My initial impressions of Tetley's Mild were: pretty deccent, nothing special.

Until me and Matt ventured down into Sheepscar. To a pub surrounded by nothing, called, the Sheepscar. Probably being destined for demolition, they'd let the handpulls be. And the associated economisers. What a revelation.

Tetley's Mild was promoted from a supporting role to a star. Fuck me, it was such a better beer. How could the method of dispense make such a difference?

I cherished every Tetley's pub with handpulls I found. Mostly located in the less fashionable bits of Leeds: Sheepscar, Cross Green and Hunslet, for example.

When the Cardigan Arms went from electric to beer engines, their Mild went from decent to amazing. Overnight. No wonder the possible hygiene problems were overlooked.

Tetley was the one bit of the Big Six I had a very soft spot for, not just because of the beer. Also how they didn't fuck up their pubs. When the Big Six swapped pubs in the 1980s, Bass immediately buggered up the pubs they acquired in Leeds. Whereas Tetley very rarely did. Weird that, despite owning almost all the pubs in the city, Tetley and their beers were incredibly popular.

That says to me that the Big Six overall could have pursued a different strategy and still made money. Maybe even more than they did.

I didn't immediately realise, after discovering and then worshipping handpulled Tetley's Mild, exactly why they could so recklessly spill it over the top of the glass. The niceties of serving weren't drawing my attention. Not like that lovely Mild.

That sea of Mild in the drip tray wasn't just there for decorative purposes. As lovely as it looked. (I'm thinking Brassmoulders Arms in Hunslet. Loved the photos of international Rugby League games they had on the walls.) That was getting recycled into your pint.

You know what? I didn't care. The beer only tasted right served that way. Well, the way I liked it. And I think the brewery did, as they reinstated handpulls and univacs in most of their pubs in Leeds.

Recently, I got my hands on the Tetley standards manual from 1985. With too much detail possibly even for me. Lots of the way they were brewing was the same as in 1945, the most recent of their records I've photographed.

The standards say for additions post-fermentation:

"Sterilised beer, 12.5% max, 1031º, racking tank"

I think I know what that means: ullage. Returned beer and all sorts of other crap. The type of thing Watney got up to. Evil brewers like those. That's why their beers were crap.

But, if you talk to brewers, well, almost everyone did it. To one extent or another. Because there was so much money in, essentially, untaxed beer. The tax system hugely incentivised this behaviour. Until they changed the tax to being based on the ABV at the brewery gate.

Does that mean that all beers were crap? No. Objectively, they weren't. Surprisingly.

That Tetley's Mild I loved. Drip ray and ullage combined might have been 20% recycled. How eco-friendly is that?

More than I needed to know? Maybe. Well, no, not at all. It could have been 50% slops and 50% spit, for all I care. The taste was great great. I'm not going to worry about the nicetie of how it was created. Flavour beats everything.

To answer the question in the title. If you can remember that. No. Not in the case of Tetley's Mild. Learning of its faults makes it no less wonderful. Like Maradonna. But less druggy. The truth hasn't spoilt my, retrospective, enjoyment.