Barley Wine bollocks

As you bloodthirsty lot seem to enjoy it when I get the hatchet out, here's another critique of a beer history article.

This time the object of my hacking is an article on Barley Wine published on the Glasshopper blog last year:

https://theglasshopper.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/a-history-of-barley-wine-is-barley-wine-wine-where-did-it-come-from/

I noticed it because it's cited as a reference in the Wikipedia entry on Barley Wine.

Let's start at the beginning.

"We will begin our story back in England, circa 1903, Bass & Co. Brewery is the first advertised time that a beer was called a barley wine."

Actually Bass had been calling No. 1 Ale Barley Wine since at least 1870.

The author is totally clueless about part-gyling:

"The commonly accepted practice at the time, for breweries, was that a single mash was used for all of the planned beers that they were going to brew. This process, called Parti-Gyle, involved using one wort, and then taking the first runnings from the mash and using it for the strong and stout beers (if you didn’t understand the pun; this first batch was normally used to produce stouts). The brewers would use later runnings for progressively lighter style beers."

This is the pre-industrial way of parti-gyling and not the way anyone brewed in the 19th-century. Not all beers were and could be parti-gyled together. And the worts were blended post-boil with some of each wort going into every beer. You'd get shit beers if you made them from all later worts because they aren't as high quality.

This next bit is just total made-up bollocks:

"All of that explanation leads me to how the first marketed barley wine was created. Circa the turn of the century, Bass & Co. Brewery was a large (relative for the time) brewer that used this method to brew, and as such would number their beers in order of creation. Since they used the Parti-Gyle method, the first set of beers would tend to be very strong. At the time, they wanted a beer that would rival the attributes of grape wine. They wanted a very heavy, ABV beer that would look similar to a red wine, and taste more malty than what was currently out there. The goal partially being to offer wine drinkers a beer option."

Bass had been nrewing No. 1 since at least the 1860's. That stuff about trying to create a beer that was malty and like wine is total crap. The original Barley Wines were very heavily hopped. 1931 Truman No. 1 Barley Wine was 137 IBUs according to BeerSmith. I call that pretty effing bitter. And pre-WW I English beers had been even more heavily hopped.

Number their beers in order of creation? As Bass went as far as No. 6, that would mean that they had to have six worts from a single mash. I've never seen more than four. And if No. 1 meant a beer from the frist wort, how come Bass's Stouts started at P2? Did they just throw away the first Stout wort?

Unbelievably, the article manages to get even worse.

"Bass followed a process in which it would name their beers with the number beer it was from the runnings. Therefore, what would eventually be named and be called a barley wine was Bass No. 1, because it was the first beer bottled from the mash. The traditional European barley wine is now described as low levels of bitter, but characterized by large quantities of pale malt. It was billed as a sherry or brandy substitute in historic advertising. It was marketed mainly to upper class English, and CAMRA’s (Campaign for Real Ale) description of barley wine describes it as a nationalist attempt of English to get fellow English men to switch to this instead of French Claret (a red wine from Bordeaux, or wine of a similar character made elsewhere)."

It's a big assumption that Bass No. 1 was always parti-gyled. I've single-gyle example of the Truman's equivalent. The first beer bottled from the mash? Does he have no understanding of brewing? What about fermentation? And if it had been parti-gyled with a wekaer a beer it wouldn't have been the first bottled, but the last as it would have been aged a year at least. Another famous Barley Wine called No. 1, Tennant's Gold Label, was also brewed single-gyle, both at Tennant in Sheffield and later at Whitbread in London.

I've never seen Barley Wine billed as a sherry of brandy substitute. Whitbread's Gold Label advertising used to say it was as strong as a double whisky, but half the price. That's the only comaprison with another drink I'm aware of.

There's still so much of this bollocks masquerading as history out there. My work clearly isn't done.

Community Beer Archive

Just had an idea. Prompted by a question down the pub:

"Have all the brewing records in the London Metropolitan Archives been scanned."

It was well meant, but I couldn't help laughing.

Then realised it wasn't a laughing matter. I've taken a few snapshots, but the vast majority of the pages are unrecorded. There are all sorts of ways they could be damaged or lost. What a waste.

There's a huge resource out there, in a highly flammble, rottable, floodable, wormable form. It needs to be backed up.

No way I can do that by myself.

Here's the idea: a community scanning project. Anyone can take part. Scan brewing records and add them to a freely accessible database.

This is the best bit: get beer as a reward.

That's if brewers are willing to join in. Give beer, save history.

Who's in?

Me talking

Fancy listening to the world's leading beer historian give a talk? As she or he probably won't be available, how about listening to me instead?

In the course of my world tours*, I've honed my talking bollocks in front of an audience skills. And now, as the bills flow in - at 18 children become incredibly economically unattractive in Holland, it's time to leverage those skillls. Whatever that means.

"You need to earn some money from that beer crap, Ronald." Is how Dolores puts it. And as she's putting up with a brewing installation, albeit a small one, in our living room, I'd best pay her heed.

Below is some of the bollocking talking I do. My rates are, unlike my teenage kids, very reasonable.

* "world" in the World Series sense.

Burton Unions

Just got the latest issue of the Brewery History Journal. It's one of the few beer publications I get excited about. Why might that be?

An article entitled "An evaluation of the number and distribution of Burton unions" particularly attracted my attention. Fascinating. And useful at the same time. The author, Paul Bayley, unlike populist beer writers, can be arsed to list his sources. They run to seven and a half pages.

Well done, Paul. You put the majority of beer writers to shame with your research and references. Why isn't all beer-writing of this quality?

Challenge everything

Standing on the shoulders of midgets. That's what modern beer writers are doing. We need a year zero.

I was lucky enough to be young during the punk period. Suddenly all my ideas about music were challenged. Relistening to my records, I found many wanting. About half went in the bin. Looking at the current state of beer writing, I can't help thinking a similar process is long overdue. If I took a critical look at the books I own, how many would survive the cull?

I've been doing my own research into beer history for about five years. What I've learned is at odds with almost everything published. Mild, Porter, Stout, IPA, Brown Ale: the history of all these styles is at best distorted. In some cases, it appears totally fabricated. And that's just British styles. Don't get me started on lagers. Or German Ales, sorry, top-fermenting beers. Anyone know the story behind Düsseldorf Alt? I certainly don't.

Much of the work on beer history is so misguided and misleading, it would be better to start afresh. Just forget everything we thought we knew and do a Michael Finnegan - begin again.

Why not make 2008 year zero?