Let's Brew - 1917 Barclay Perkins XLK (crate)

In April 1917 Barclay Perkins dropped their bottling version of XLK and replaced it with “crate”.

At first I wondered what the hell they meant with crate. Surely all bottled beer was delivered in crates? Then I remembered some old adverts. Where they show a four-quart crate.  It’s always cheap and cheerful beer being marketed that way. It looks to me like a transitional thing, when having a cask was going out of fashion, but people still wanted to buy in relative bulk.

Which explains a fairly low OG. Weirdly, the type of quart screw-topped bottles they used for crate beer were still around when I lived in Leeds in the later 1970s. I can remember buying Whitbread beer in bottles like that from Mr. Fisher, the bloke who ran the open all hours grocery and offie opposite 97 Brudenell Road. A house I lived in several times.

A forerunner of Light Ale is how I’d describe this. Light Ale being the low-gravity bottled Pale Ale that was all the rage between 1930 and 1970. 

1917 Barclay Perkins XLK (crate)
pale malt	7.25 lb	91.66%
No. 2 invert sugar	0.33 lb	4.17%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.33 lb	4.17%
Fuggles 120 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1036
FG	1008
ABV	3.70
Apparent attenuation	77.78%
IBU	25
SRM	6
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	60.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

The above is one of almost 300 recipes in this wonderful book.

There's also a Kindle version.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1901 Whitbread KK

Let’s take a look at what a couple of decades have done to Whitbread’s main Burton Ale, KK.

The most obvious change is in the colour, which is much darker. We’ll see in a moment the reason for that. Otherwise, it looks much the same as in 1981, in terms of OG and bitterness level.

Dig a little deeper, and the changes are more significant. Brown malt has been added to the grist, albeit in a fairly small amount. The bulk of the malt bill, however, remains SA malt (for which I’ve substituted mild malt), pale malt and PA malt (which I’ve combined together)

I have to admit that I’m not totally sure that the sugar was No. 3 invert. The brewing record doesn’t specify the type. It could equally have been No. 1 or No. 2. Which would have a significant impact on the colour.

English hops, all from the 1900 season, now rule supreme. Two lots of East Kent and one of Worcester.

In the brewing record the FG is listed as 1028, which is the racking gravity rather than the true FG. Several months of a secondary Brettanomyces fermentation would have reduced that considerably.

1901 Whitbread KK
mild malt	7.25 lb	43.94%
pale malt	6.75 lb	40.91%
brown malt	0.25 lb	1.52%
No. 3 invert sugar	2.25 lb	13.64%
Fuggles 105 mins	3.25 oz
Goldings 60 mins	3.25 oz
Goldings 30 mins	3.25 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1076
FG	1018
ABV	7.67
Apparent attenuation	76.32%
IBU	98
SRM	18
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	180º F
Boil time	105 minutes
pitching temp	57º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1940 William Younger XXP Btlg

A little thing like a global conflict didn’t deter Younger from continuing to brew a baffling array of Pale Ales. One being the bottling version of XXP.

The OG is down 2º from the previous year. And the cuts in strength weren’t going to stop these. At this point it’s looking very much like. I’ve dropped the FG by 3º from the one listed in the brewing record, as it’s a cleansing rather than a racking gravity.

In the grist, the big change is the addition of flaked rice. The result of which is a reduction in the proportion of pale malt. I’m slightly surprised that they still had any stocks of grits left, as imports of maize had been cut off for a year. Younger was a bit unusual when it came to adjuncts, as you’ll see when we get to 1942. The year they used a ridiculous selection of different ones.

As usual, the hops were all from Kent, about a quarter from the 1939 harvest and the rest from 1938.

Don’t pat too much attention to the colour. The one listed is as brewed. In the glass, it would probably have been darker, given Scottish brewers’ enthusiasm for colouring up beer with caramel.

1940 William Younger XXP Btlg
pale malt	5.50 lb	62.86%
flaked rice	1.75 lb	20.00%
grits	1.50 lb	17.14%
Fuggles 105 min	0.75 oz
Fuggles 30 min	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.125 oz
OG	1038
FG	1011
ABV	3.57
Apparent attenuation	71.05%
IBU	16
SRM	4
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	105 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

 

 

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1906 Barclay Perkins KK

A decade and a half later and the trend to darken Burton Ales has reached its endpoint. With KK now very firmly in the dark camp.

The dark colour is mostly courtesy of a very healthy dose of caramel added to the copper. That and the No. 2 sugar. Strangely, there’s no crystal malt in this one. Though there are two base malts: pale malt and SA malt. I’ve substituted mild malt for the latter. SA (Strong Ale) malt was designed to produce a less fermentable wort, presumably to leave more for the Brettanomyces to munch on during secondary fermentation.

I know for certain that this beer was aged as there’s a note in the brewing record saying: “Oct. 28/06, Very Grey”. Which was 5 months after it was brewed.

Despite being fairly strong, this wasn’t a small speciality side-line: this batch was 1,027 barrels. As I’m pretty sure it was aged in trade casks, it must have taken up considerable cellar space in the brewery

A mix of English and American hops were use. Specifically, East Kent from the 1905 harvest, American from 1904 and Mid-Kent from 1904. And more East Kent from 1905 as dry hops.

1906 Barclay Perkins KK
pale malt	6.75 lb	45.38%
mild malt	4.00 lb	26.89%
flaked maize	1.50 lb	10.08%
No. 2 invert sugar	2.50 lb	16.81%
caramel 2000 SRM	0.125 lb	0.84%
Cluster 120 mins	1.50 oz
Fuggles 120 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 60 mins	3.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	3.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.75 oz
OG	1073
FG	1020.5
ABV	6.95
Apparent attenuation	71.92%
IBU	107
SRM	23
Mash at	153º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

This recipe is in my two new books, Strong! vols. 1 & 2 and Strong! vol.2.

Let's Brew - 1923 Boddington CC

WW I doesn’t seem to have treated CC too badly. It came out of the other side only 5º weaker. Not bad at all.

Amazingly, the grist has got even simpler. As the flaked maize has been dropped. A conscious decision by Boddington as all the rest of their beers, with the exception of Stout, did contain maize. Leaving just base malt and sugar. There were however, two types of pale malt, both English.

As Boddington were totally vague about the type of sugar being used – it’s in a column simply headed “Sch’rne” meaning just “sugar” – I’ve had to guess what it might be. No. 3 invert seems the most likely option for a dark beer like CC.

Boddington normally used four or five different copper hops and this beer is no exception. Pacific from the 1921 harvest, English from 1922 and Hannover from 1923. There were so few of the last, just 5 lbs out of a total of a total of 160 lbs, that it’s not worth including them in the recipe.

One of the odd features of Boddington is that they used American hops as dry hops. Which really shocked me as I’ve always read that UK brewers hated the flavour of American hops. In this case the dry hops were Pacific from the 1921 harvest, English from 1921 and Hannover from 1923.

1923 Boddington CC
pale malt	12.00 lb	95.05%
caramel 5000 SRM	0.125 lb	0.99%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.50 lb	3.96%
Cluster 155 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 90 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.75 oz
Cluster dry hops	0.25 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1057
FG	1018
ABV	5.16
Apparent attenuation	68.42%
IBU	47
SRM	20
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	168º F
Boil time	155 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1318 London ale III (Boddingtons)

This recipe is in my two new books, Strong! vols. 1 & 2 and Strong! vol.2.

Let's Brew - 1944 Fullers XX

With all the fuss about D-Dy this week, I thought I'd publish a recipe from 1944. And what could be more typical of what was being drunk at the time than a Mild Ale?

Five years into the war and Fullers were still producing a stronger Mild, XX. It had lost 8 gravity points, but the gravity was still fairly respectable.

The grist was pretty much the same as in 1939. The only real change was the replacement of flaked maize by flaked barley. There was also a slight reduction in the proportion of glucose.

There were bigger changes with regard to hops. Not in terms of the type, as Fullers continued to use 100% English hops, as they had before the war. The difference was the quantity. The rate had fallen from 7 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt to 5.25 lbs. That’s a reduction of 25%. Which is a bout in line with the reduction demanded by the government. In 1941, the quantity of hops available to brewers was reduced by 20%.

The reduction in hopping rate is reflected in the drop in (calculated) IBUs from 28 to 20. It makes XX look very much like the Milds I knew in my youth in terms of strength and bitterness level.

1944 Fullers XX
pale malt	7.00 lb	82.35%
flaked barley	1.25 lb	14.71%
glucose	0.125 lb	1.47%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.125 lb	1.47%
Fuggles 90 min	0.75 oz
Fuggles 30 min	0.75 oz
OG	1034.5
FG	1010
ABV	3.24
Apparent attenuation	71.01%
IBU	20
SRM	12
Mash at	147º F
After underlet	150º F
Sparge at	168º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	WLP002 English Ale

Let's Brew - Russell 4d Ale

Continuing my Mild series for no other reason than I fucking love Mild. Here's another Mild recipe. But not from one of the usual suspects.

Russell’s was a decent-sized regional brewery based in Gravesend, Kent. It was purchased by the Russell family in 1856, became a limited company in 1893. When Truman bought the company in 1930, Russell owned 223 tied houses.

4d Ale, as a type, is a hangover from WW I. A low-gravity Mild Ale in the weakest price-controlled gravity band. In London it was only brewed in small quantities, out it the sticks, it was more popular. Presumably amongst the price-conscious dinkers.

I keep banging on about how simple old recipes were. And how Dark Mild didn’t contain any dark malts. But here’s an old beer that contradicts both those assertions.

With three different malts – four if you count the English and Californian pale malts as different – the bill is quite varied. Three types of sugar, glucose, invert and Tintose, complete the picture. These appear as glucose, No. 3 invert and caramel in the recipe below.

The hops were English from the 1926, 1927 and 1928 harvests, Poperinge from 1928, Oregon from 1927 and samples. The cheapskates. The first time I encountered generic “samples” was in a wartime record and I assumed it was an example of making do. Since I’ve spotted them in records from unstressed times, as here.

1929 Russell 4d Ale
pale malt	5.00 lb	76.34%
crystal malt 60 L	0.25 lb	3.82%
black malt	0.125 lb	1.91%
flaked maize	0.75 lb	11.45%
glucose	0.25 lb	3.82%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.125 lb	1.91%
caramel 2000 SRM	0.05 lb	0.76%
Cluster 90 mins	0.25 oz
Strisselspalt 90 mins	0.25 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	0.50 oz
OG	1029
FG	1006
ABV	3.04
Apparent attenuation	79.31%
IBU	22
SRM	15
Mash at	144º F
After underlet	146º F
Sparge at	167º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

I'm totally aware that the label is for a totally different brewery.


This is one of the dozens of recipes in my book Mild! plus. Which is avaiable in both paperback:

 

and hardback formats:

Let's Brew - 1858 Tetley SP

I'm just realising how few Tetley's recipes I've published. At least on the blog.* Odd given my obsession with the brewery.

Yorkshire isn’t particularly well known for Stout, though, as in all parts of the UK, plenty was brewed there. A brewery couldn’t afford not to have at least one Stout in their range. Drinkers expected the option. Tetley seem to have been particularly enthusiastic brewers of Porter and Stout. Exceptionally so for a Northern brewer.

As you’re probably tired of hearing me say, brewers outside London had mostly dropped brown malt from their Stout grists by the middle of the 19th century. They preferred a simpler grist of just pale and black malt. As is the case with this beer.

In terms of strength, it looks like a London Single Stout of the same period. Does SP stand for “Stout Porter”. Possible. But I wouldn’t bet my house on it. The bitterness level, however looks low. Reid’s 1877 S has more than twice the number of calculated IBUs.

1858 Tetley SP
pale malt	15.75 lb	92.65%
black malt	1.25 lb	7.35%
Goldings 90 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.50 oz
OG	1072
FG	1024
ABV	6.35
Apparent attenuation	66.67%
IBU	32
SRM	34
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	180º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale

* I have published more Tetley's recipes in various books. This one appears in my excellent Let's Brew!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/ronald-pattinson/lets-brew/paperback/product-23289812.html

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1910 Warwicks IPA

Here’s a beer with which I have a very personal connection. And not just because it’s from my hometown.

Warwicks & Richardsons was one of the two large breweries in Newark-on-Trent, the other being Holes. The latter being the first place I worked. And one of the beers I filled into kegs in 1975 was the last Warwicks beer still being brewed: IPA. IPA was Warwicks standard Bitter, the equivalent Holes beer being AK.

Until a few weeks ago I though no brewing records from Newark breweries had survived. Happily, I was wrong. They’ve a few documents from both Holes and Warwicks archived in Nottingham.

British brewers have been pretty inconsistent in their use of the designations Pale Ale and IPA. Much to the annoyance of modern style Nazis. But this really does look like a classic Burton IPA, at least in terms of gravity. The hopping isn’t quite as crazy.

As you would expect from a beer intended to be pretty pale in colour, there are no coloured malts in the grist and a high percentage of non-malt fermentables. It’s one of the ironies of pre-WW I brewing that often the most expensive beers, high-class Pale Ales, contained the smallest percentage of malt. Sugar and flaked maize were used to keep the body and colour as light as possible.

No. 2 invert is my guess. In the record in just specifies it as “Glebe”. It could also be something like No. 1 invert. I just don’t know.

The hops were a mixture of Oregon and English. I don’t know the variety of the English hops. Goldings is just a guess. You could also opt for some, or all, Fuggles. What is noticeable is the totally crazy level of dry hopping. In the original there were 396 lbs of copper hops and 207 lbs of dry hops. That’s a completely insane ratio.

Given the very high level of dry hopping, it wouldn’t surprise me if IPA was still being brewed as a Stock Ale and aged for months before sale.

1910 Warwicks IPA
pale malt	8.25 lb	64.71%
flaked maize	3.00 lb	23.53%
No. 2 invert sugar	1.50 lb	11.76%
Cluster 120 mins	1.25 oz
Goldings 60 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	2.00 oz
OG	1060
FG	1018
ABV	5.56
Apparent attenuation	70.00%
IBU	48
SRM	8
Mash at	153º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale

Let’s brew Wednesday - 1935 Barclay Perkins X

The middle Mild of the three parti-gyled together.

Though the story is a little more complicated than that. As brewed, X Ale was around 11 SRM. But some of the brew was coloured darker and called X Sp., with a colour of 20 SRM. Though,  strangely enough, I’ve not been able to find any material on the semi-dark and dark versions being marketed differently.

My guess would be that no pub would sell two differently-coloured versions of X. Which has me thinking, did the colour of Barclay Perkins Mild depend on where it was sold? That was certainly the case of different-coloured versions of Scottish beers. It would make sense, as truly Dark Mild seems to have appeared earlier in London than in some other parts of the country. And Barclay Perkins had pubs both in and outside the capital. Was the paler version for the sticks?

That’s just about everything interesting I have to say about this beer. Obviously, the recipe is exactly the same as for XX, just there’s a little less of everything. Oh, almost forgot. There’s the priming. That raises the effective OG to 1038º.

I can remember being very confused a few years ago by analyses in the Whitbread Gravity Book of Barclay Perkins X Ale. They showed OG’s of 1037º to 1039º. Which didn’t match the gravity of either X or XX. I wondered if it was either due to XX being watered down or slops of stronger beers being thrown into X. Now I realise that it was the primings added at racking.

1935 Barclay Perkins X
pale malt	1.25 lb	16.78%
mild malt	3.25 lb	43.62%
crystal malt 60 L	0.50 lb	6.71%
amber malt	0.66 lb	8.86%
flaked maize	1.00 lb	13.42%
No. 2 invert sugar	0.75 lb	10.07%
caramel	0.04 lb	0.54%
Fuggles 150 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	0.50 oz
OG	1035
FG	1007
ABV	3.70
Apparent attenuation	80.00%
IBU	20
SRM	11
Mash at	155º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	150 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1913 Boddington CC

Boddington had some confusing names for their beers. B, BB and CC. No idea what they stand for. The first two are Mild Ales, the last one a Strong Ale.

Is it connected with the legendary C Ale, a type of Strong ale specific to Manchester? I’ve no clue, if I’m being honest. It would be nice to think that there is, but why would you go from two C’s to one? The implication would be that it was weaker. Because that’s how beer naming usually went. And that’s not normally the impression you’d want to give with a Strong Ale.

Boddington’s CC was brewed until WW II, but discontinued, never to return, in 1941. They did brew a Strong Ale after WW II, but that was simply called SA in the brew house. I think you can guess what the initials stood for.

The recipe is classic 20th century English: pale malt, flaked maize, sugar and colouring. It strikes me that breweries, especially smaller ones like Boddington, tried to use as few types of malt as possible. In the run up to WW I, Boddington only used two: pale and black. The latter being used in tiny quantities and only in Stout.

As you may have noticed, this beer is quite heavily hopped. To be honest, other than the Cluster, the varieties are a guess. All that’s listed is the name of the grower, not even the region where they were grown. Feel free to substitute them.

While I’m mentioning guesses, the sugar is, too. The logs reveal nothing about the sugar type at all. It could be anything, but invert sugar is the most likely. As I’m pretty sure this beer was dark, No. 3 invert is the obvious choice.

1913 Boddington CC
pale malt	11.50 lb	86.34%
flaked maize	0.75 lb	5.63%
caramel	0.07 lb	0.53%
No. 3 invert sugar	1.00 lb	7.51%
Cluster 145 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 90 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1062
FG	1020
ABV	5.56
Apparent attenuation	67.74%
IBU	75
SRM	20
Mash at	158º F
Sparge at	168º F
Boil time	165 minutes
pitching temp	61.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1318 London ale III (Boddingtons)

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1847 William Younger 60/-

I thought I’d treat you with another early William Younger beer. A very different type of 60/- Ale.

By different, I mean different from the post-WW II beer of the same name. As I’ve already told you 7 gazillion times, the 60/- and 80/- of the 19th century were essentially types of Mild Ale. While the late 20th-century versions were all Pale Ales. Though, just to make things extra confusing, by colouring 60/- with caramel, it performed a passing imitation of Dark Mild.

There’s a huge difference in strength between the 60/- Ales of the two eras. After WW II, the style wasn’t much over 1030º and barely 3% ABV. The version from the 1840’s was about double the OG, though a pretty crappy degree of attenuation leaves the ABV at not much over 4%. Or so it seems.

While writing my new Scotland book, I’ve been investigating exactly how William Younger fermented. In the 1870’s, they were using something like the dropping system, with the fermentation starting in rounds and then, after six or seven days, dropped into square vessels. Younger’s records only record the phase. In the two or three days the beer was cleansing there would have been further fermentation. So the real FG would have been lower.

Looking at analyses I have from the 19th century of Scottish beers as sold, the degree of attenuation is higher than what I see in brewing records. Many examples from the 1870’s and 1880’s have apparent attenuation of over 80%. My guess is that the real degree of apparent attenuation would have been at least 65%

Before 1880, most of William Younger’s beers were all malt. It containing sugar, this is quite unusual. The year is no coincidence. 1847 was the year sugar was allowed in addition to malt. Doubtless Younger was just experimenting with its use. I’ve seen the same in London records from 1847. Most breweries soon abandoned sugar again and its use did really pick up until the 1870’s.

The hops were all English, mostly East Kent but some unspecified. I’ve gone for sure bet Goldings.

1847 William Younger 60/-
pale malt	10.25 lb	83.67%
table sugar	2.00 lb	16.33%
Goldings 90 min	1.50 oz
Goldings 30 min	1.00 oz
OG	1061
FG	1028
ABV	4.37
Apparent attenuation	54.10%
IBU	30
SRM	5
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	184º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	58º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale