Labatt beers in 1893

Canada – why have I suddenly started writing about it again? Maybe I’m getting bored with the 1950’s. Nah, that couldn’t be true. How could anyone tire of the 1950’s?

Have I already written anything about the Labatt’s brewing records I have? I can’t remember, to be honest. And I can’t be arsed to look it up. If I did, it can’t have been that memorable. Otherwise I’d remember it, wouldn’t I? Then again, I often can’t recall what I’ve had for breakfast. Quite an achievement, seeing I eat the same every day.

Rambling again. I think I remember now why I’ve not done much with the Labatt’s stuff: it’s a bit dull. Just four different beers with nothing particularly exciting about them: a Pale, an IPA, a Stock Ale and a Brown Stout. Hard to get too worked up about those. Other than the fact it demonstrates IPA was a common style in North America in the 19th century. If you didn’t already know that.

That seems slightly thin fare, given the rich, thick broth I usually serve. So I guess I’ll beef it up with some other stuff. But what? Tables. You can never go wrong with tables. Or comparing a brewery’s beers with those of another. Two London breweries, that makes sense. One from London, Ontario and the other from London, England.

Let’s kick off with the rather small Labatt table:

Labatt beers in 1893
Date	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)
5th Sep	EIP	IPA	1056.8	1012.5	5.86	78.05%	2.16	2	2.58
8th Sep	Pale	Pale Ale	1049.9	1012.5	4.95	75.00%	1.90	2	2.67
22nd Sep	BS	Stout	1067.9	1015.2	6.96	77.55%	2.25	2	2.75
6th Feb	ES	Stock Ale	1063.7	1009.7	7.15	84.78%	2.93	2	2.67
Source:
Labatt brewing record document number A08-054-1156

Labatt’s Pale Ale would probably have been classed as a Light Bitter in Britain. While their IPA could have been either a Pale Ale or an IPA in the UK.

You’ll probably notice something when we look at Whitbread’s rather more expansive beer range. Here you go:

Whitbread beers in 1893
Date	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)
20th Jul	X	Mild	1058.7	1015.0	5.78	74.46%	1.81	1.75	2
20th Jul	XK	Mild	1067.3	1020.0	6.26	70.29%	2.08	1.75	2
14th Oct	FA	Pale Ale	1051.2	1014.0	4.93	72.68%	2.42	1.5	1.75
22nd Sep	2PA	Pale Ale	1052.6	1014.0	5.11	73.40%	2.41	1.33	2
20th Oct	PA	Pale Ale	1058.7	1017.0	5.52	71.05%	2.96	1.33	1.92
11th Oct	KK	Stock Ale	1074.5	1025.0	6.55	66.45%	4.38	2	2
8th Dec	2KKK	Stock Ale	1082.5	1035.0	6.29	57.60%	5.38	2	2
13th Dec	KKK	Stock Ale	1087.0	1036.0	6.74	58.61%	5.51	2	2
10th Jan	P	Porter	1055.4	1014.0	5.48	74.73%	1.74	1.5	2
10th Jan	C	Porter	1057.9	1016.0	5.54	72.36%	1.82	1.5	2
15th Feb	SS	Stout	1086.4	1031.0	7.33	64.13%	4.21	2	2
15th Feb	SSS	Stout	1095.0	1034.0	8.07	64.21%	4.63	2	2
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/059 and LMA/4453/D/09/087.

What’s that something? That Labatt mostly only have the base level beer. Their Brown Stout is the equivalent of an English Single Stout, their Pale Ale like Whitbread’s weakest Bitter, Family Ale, while their Stock Ale is barely strong enough to be a KK. And, of course, Mild is missing completely, s is a simple Porter.

The hopping of Labatt’s Pale Ales looks on the low side. The Pale has a round the same quantity of hops as Whitbread’s X Mild. While their IPA has fewer hops than Whitbread’s FA. And don’t get me started on Labatt’s Stock Ale – it’s way off the UK standard for that type of beer. Only the Brown Stout looks to have a similar rate to a UK equivalent.

I went a bit table crazy. Too crazy for a single post. I’m saving the spare ones for next time.

North America calling

For some reason Canada has attracted my attention again. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it was that email asking about an historic Canadian recipe.

You won’t believe how much half-digested information is hanging around in both my head and computer. So many things I’d like to write about, if only I could be fully arsed. Like that article on brewing in London from the 1874 edition of Der Bayerische Bierbrauer. A long and fascinating article with just one little drawback: it’s in German and I’d need to translate it.

Then there are the bound editions of brewing periodicals. I’ve loads of them, mostly unexcavated. I’ve done no more than dip into a couple from periods I have a particular interest in. Maybe when I’ve retired and get bored watching daytime TV I’ll get around to looking through them thoroughly.

But some stuff I’ve neglected because I’m trying to keep focus. It’s not easy and requires iron discipline on my part. And discipline, well, that’s never been my thing. I’ve accumulated various bits and pieces about North American brewing over the years. Not consciously, for the most part. Though that may change. Will change.

This month I’ll start actively harvesting American brewing records. Something I’d hoped someone would do for me. But, you know, people are lazy gits, in general. Even lazier than me. So I’ll be doing it myself.

Why, you might ask. I have my reasons.

There was a point during the writing of The Homebrewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer that the manuscript included several North American beers. But I removed them after I decided which book I wanted to write next: The Homebrewer’s Guide to American Vintage Beer.

Now that’s decided I just need to do the research. And write it. Oh, and find a publisher.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1954 Whitbread Double Brown

I thought for a minute that I’d finished with Whitbread’s beers of the 1950’s. Then remembered that I hadn’t done the Brown Ales. Or the ordinary Mild. Without them, how would you recreate a 1950’s Whitbread pub?

I’ll admit to having a bit of a thing about Double Brown. It is a fascinating beer. A type of Brown Ale which has been forgotten. Sadly, in my opinion as it looks like a cracking beer. Dark, but quite hoppy and a good bit stronger than most post-WW II Brown Ales.

It was introduced in 1932, when it had a very respectable gravity of 1058º. And a grist very different from Whitbread’s Mild Ales. A more expensive grist, using pale ale malt as its base, as did their, er, Pale Ales. At 10 lbs of hops per quarter of malt, it was one of their most heavily hopped beers, ranking above PA (6lbs per quarter) and just behind IPA (11 lbs per quarter). Two things are clear: it wasn’t a cheap drink and it wasn’t based on Mild.

DB managed to survive WW II, though its OG did drop to the low-1040’s. By 1950, it was almost back to its pre-war strength, at 1055º. But it wasn’t to last long. DB was discontinued either in late 1955 or early 1956. And Whitbread concentrated on their other Brown Ale, Forest Brown. A watery beer based on Best Ale, Whitbread’s standard Mild.

You can’t accuse the recipe of being over-complicated. There’s just the base malt, a smidgin of chocolate malt and some No.3 invert sugar. There was a small amount of a proprietary sugar which I’ve replaced by more No. 3. The hops were a combination of Kent, Mid Kent and Sussex. I’ve assumed they were all Fuggles, but feel free to swap some for Goldings.

Whitbread went in for very short boils after WW II and this beer is no exception, being boiled for just 60 minutes.



No time to piss around, just to give you the recipe . . .

1954 Whitbread Double Brown
pale malt	9.00 lb	82.76%
chocolate malt	0.125 lb	1.15%
no. 3 invert sugar	1.75 lb	16.09%
Fuggles 60 min	1.25 oz
Fuggles 40 min	1.25 oz
Fuggles 20 min	1.50 oz
OG	1053
FG	1014.5
ABV	5.09
Apparent attenuation	72.64%
IBU	42
SRM	30
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	168º F
Boil time	60 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

This Friday in NYC

I land in Newark around midday. And have a train from Penn Station to Albany at 16:40. I plan filling the time between with some beers.

If you'd like to say: "You're Ron Pattinson and I claim my right to buy you a pint." drop by. If you're a stingy git, drop by, too. Just bring some pork scratchings.

Not sure how long immigration and all that stuff will take. So being a bit conservative, Friday, 11th March, 2016 about 2 PM, I'll be here:

District Tap House  
246 W 38th St,
New York,
NY 10018
http://www.districttaphouse.com

With an avenue-length thirst and just enough luggage to be a nuisance. That'll be me. And happy to chat with anyone not openly bearing arms. Or grudges.

20% off my Lulu print books.

until the end of today (8th March).

All you need to do is to use this code when you buy:

CLEAR20

Get the whole Mega Book Series  -   Porter!, Mild! plus, Bitter! and Strong! - for a a whole fifth off! For the whole set, that's the equivalent of one free book.


Barclay Perkins Bookstore

Guinness’s Park Royal Brewery in 1949 – the brew house (part seven)

The wort is finally getting the chance to turn itself into beer as we enter the fermenting tuns at Park Royal. Dead exciting, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Somewhat surprisingly for the date, Guinness had wooden fermenters:

“The tuns are of the totally-enclosed type and are constructed in Kauri pine, selected for its very well-known properties of hardness and smooth grain and low coefficient of heat conduction, the large ones being of 1,260 barrel capacity and are 28 ft. long x 26 ft. wide x 20 ft. deep. The small tuns are of 630 barrel capacity; they are 28 ft. long x 13 ft. wide x 20 ft. deep, the liquor dip in each case being 14 ft. 6 in. The ceiling of these vessels is formed by the reinforced concrete floor above, the underside of which is panelled in white glazed tiles.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing Volume 55, Issue 5, 1949, page 284.

The Kauri pine is native to Queensland in Australia and Papua New Guinea. From the description given of the wood’s characteristics, you can see why it might be chosen for making fermenters. A smooth grain means less opportunity for anything nasty to hide in it. And its insulating would have come in handy in a brewery, too.

Looking at those dimensions, the fermenters were quite deep at 20 feet. Deeper than they were wide, in the case of the smaller capacity ones. While the large ones weren’t far off from being cubes. Oh, and pretty large. Even large breweries like Bass had surprisingly small fermenters in the late 19th century. Rarely more than 100 barrels in size. Ones as large as 1,200 barrels I’ve never come across elsewhere.

As I mentioned earlier, Guinness were very unusual in having fermenters with a capacity equal to, or larger than, that of their mash tuns. Usually one brew went into several fermenters rather than the other way around as is common in modern breweries. At least the small to medium size ones.

“No provision is made for the collection of CO2 gas, but the gas flows over and through ports below the door sill to a gas trunking system connecting the fans which discharge the gas to atmosphere over the fermenting house roof. For removal of gas after tunnage, portable reinforced rubber pipes of 6 in. diameter and long enough to reach the bottom of the tun are connected up to the gas trunking system with quick bayonet fastenings. A tun can be freed of gas within half an hour to enable men to enter for washing down. No detergents are used in washing.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing Volume 55, Issue 5, 1949, page 284.

Unlike in German breweries where CO2 collection was required for force carbonation, British breweries often didn’t bother. Their open fermenters weren’t very suited to collection and, when much beer was in cask form, little CO2 was needed. Guinness still bottle-conditioned at this point so didn’t even require CO2 for bottling.

It seems the wooden fermenters weren’t without their problems:

“It may be mentioned that difficulty has been experienced in recent years in these days of low gravities and their attendant troubles, in keeping the surface of the timber bacteriologically clean, and to overcome this it has been decided to line them with sheet metal. The first choice was stainless steel, but owing to the prolonged delivery dates and last, but not least, the very heavy cost involved, aluminium has been adopted. The lining will be of 6 gauge thick aluminium sheet 99-5 per cent, purity to B.S.S. A3 of welded construction with felt and bitumen backing, and the necessary inlet and outlet connections will all be "cleaned up" to remove, as far as possible, all corners where infection could possibly find a lodging.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing Volume 55, Issue 5, 1949, page 284.

Keeping out bugs is, of course, the biggest problem with using wooden vessels in a brewery. Reduced gravities caused British brewers all sorts of trouble in the 20th century. It makes you realise how the old high gravities had allowed brewers to be less careful and still get away with it. When most beers were under 1040º a whole new set of skills were required.

And here are typical problems of the immediate post-war period: shortage of materials. And expensive materials. Brewers often didn’t have the luxury of using exactly what they would have liked. It must have been a frustrating time.

Not quite done with the fermenting kit yet. Rousers and skimmers next.

Canadian Ale in 1909

Numbers – I can never get enough of them. If only I had more time to harvest them. But for some reason a day only has 24 hours rather than the 60 I’d need to get through everything.

This particular set come from a handy little pamphlet published by the Canadian Department of Inland Revenue’s Laboratory. Who says the taxman is no use for anything?

I‘ve billed this as Canadian Ales, but there are a couple of exceptions. Namely the Pilsener that for some inexplicable reason is included with the Ales. And McEwan and Bass, which are British imports. It’s handy having the latter two, as it gives some sort of context for the Canadian beers.

You’ll note that the Canadian examples are generally weaker than the British ones. Though the imports were both top-class beers. Overall, the average of 1050º for Canadian Pale Ales looks low compared to British beers of the period, which you would expect to be around 1055º.

What does surprise me is the high degree of attenuation amongst the Canadian samples. Though this could be because these are finished, bottled beers. Whereas I usually taken the FG of British beers form brewing records, which gives the racking gravity rather than the true final gravity. As many British Pale Ales were still genuine Stock Ales with a long secondary fermentation, the final gravity would have been a good few points lower.

I was also interested to see just how alcoholic the Ginger Beer and Root Beer is. As strong as a lot of 1920’s British Mild Ale.

No long dissertation this time. I’ll just leave you with the table.

Canadian Ale in 1909
Brewer	Town	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
Dolan Bros.	St. Johns, NB	Stone Ginger Beer	Ginger Beer		1028.7	1.34
S.H. McKee & Sons	St. Johns, NB	Stone Ginger Beer	Ginger Beer		1010.7	2.93
Simeon Jones	St. Johns, NB	Red Ball India Pale Ale	IPA	1050.6	1007	6.02	86.17%
McEwan	Edinburgh	India Pale Ale	IPA	1060.1	1004.7	7.61	92.18%
Bass	Burton	Pale Ale	IPA	1065.7	1008.7	7.74	86.76%
average IPA				1058.8	1006.8	7.12	88.37%
T.B. Renaud & Co.	Quebec	Ale	Pale Ale	1010.6	1000.3	1.65	97.17%
John Labatt	London, Ont.	Ale	Pale Ale	1037	1014.1	3.42	61.89%
G.E. Amiot	Quebec	Ale	Pale Ale	1047.1	1009.4	5.24	80.04%
G.E. Amiot	Quebec	Ale	Pale Ale	1047.3	1009.8	5.24	79.28%
John Labatt	London, Ont.	Ale	Pale Ale	1049.4	1010.3	5.31	79.15%
Protean & Carignan	Quebec	Ale	Pale Ale	1050.3	1012.2	5.32	75.75%
Boswell	Quebec	Ale	Pale Ale	1052.2	1004.8	6.48	90.80%
Oland & Son	Halifax, NS	Pale Ale	Pale Ale	1053.4	1008.8	6.24	83.52%
Keith	Halifax, NS	Pale Ale	Pale Ale	1055.5	1006.5	6.71	88.29%
James Ready	St. Johns, NB	Ready's Pale Ale	Pale Ale	1059.8	1005.1	7.40	91.47%
James Ready	Fairville, NS	Ale	Pale Ale	1061.5	1007.1	7.48	88.46%
Halifax Breweries	Halifax, NS	Howard's Ale	Pale Ale	1061.7	1006.7	7.57	89.14%
Halifax Brewing Co.	Halifax, NS	Ale	Pale Ale	1065.6	1014.1	7.01	78.51%
average Pale Ale				1050.1	1008.4	5.77	83.34%
Crystal Spring Mineral Waters Co.	Halifax, NS	Ramey's Pilsener Beer	Pilsner	1024.9	1001.4	3.48	94.38%
W.B. Daley	St. Johns, NB	Root Beer	Root Beer		997.7	2.72
Source:
"Ale and lager beer" by McGill, A. (Anthony), 1910, pages 4 - 19.

Random Dutch beers (part twenty-two)

No, I hadn't given this up. Just paused or a while.

I had to restart. Orders from Dolores.

"You'd better drink most of those beers before you go to the States, Ronald. I don't want that mess on my floor for two weeks."

I've no idea what she means. There can't be more than 60 or 70 bottles. Where's the mess?

The address of this bunch is just around the corner, but it's brewed at Brouwerij Anders! in Belgium (according to RateBeer).

Two Chefs Brewing Green Bullet IPA 5.7% ABV
Pours the usual hazy copper orange. Forms quite a nice head, though it is pretty fizzy. Lots of those citrusy things in the aroma. And in the mouth. I find it hard to say much about modern IPA's. Citrus, passion fruit, avocado - no, strike the last one. But you know what I mean. Beyond listing a fruit salad's ingredients, there's little else to say. This one's a decent enough drinker. Quite bitter at the end. Just like I'll be, most likely.

This beer's to celebrate finishing my talk for the historic beer conference in Colonial Williamsburg. Been fretting about it all week. Only five days until I travel. I prefer not to leave things so late.

What the hell. let's do another from them.

Two Chefs Dirty Katarina 10.5% ABV
It's 14:30. Perfect time for an Imperial Stout. Actually, a bit late. It's really for breakfast, rather than brunch. Like a really bitter toffee sweet that's been liquidised. In a good way. Or sugared tar. Yummmeee.

"Do you want to try my beer, Andrew"

"No."

"After I lugged back all that Amstel from the supermarket for you."

"Dad, where can you buy whale meat"

"Norway, Alexei."

"Go on, try it Andrew."

"OK, then." Sips apathetically.

"Don't know. It's alright."

Really made an impression on Andrew, that one.

"Iceland and Japan, too."

"Why Are you so interested in whale meat, Lexie?"

"It sounds interesting."

"Don't they have it here? I heard they got washed up here and they used them."

"Not for human consumption, Lexie."

Let's Brew Wednesday (Saturday edition) – 1885 Thomas Usher Stout

Englische Woche. It’s the German phrase for playing two competitive football games in a week. I’ve always thought of myself as a Premier League-class player. So I’m going English Week with recipes.

As you’ve surely twigged, it’s a clever ruse to pad the blog with other crap I have hanging around. A bit like Little Dave. Hanging around, I mean. He did lots of that. I remember the one time I tried ignoring him calling around. First he rang the bell. Then banged on the front door. Then climbed up outside my room and banged on the window. I manage to ignore the banging for 36 minutes, then gave in. “Bit tired today, Dave.”

Moving back on topic, I’ve a Scottish Stout for you. For no particular reason, other than that I had the recipe hanging around and I’ve a long trip coming up. Have to bash out the posts this week. If all goes well, I’ll be relaxing in an Albany bar, laughing with my chums over my current level of paranoia.

Been checking my sales. Heartened to see that Decoction! is one of my self-publish best-sellers, pushing into double figures like a tentative England number 10. Yeah!

You’ve clocked me. I’m just trying to distract you from the normality of the recipe. Which I’ve just realised is my point. This is an ordinary beer. Nothing special. Something brewed without pretension and drunk without fuss.  The sort of beer I love.

Did I mention the best town for beer ever? The one that pulled down the kecks and leathered the arse of other cities like my pervy music teacher with his slipper? Better than Portland, San Diego, Munich, Edinburgh and Swindon. No? You’ll have to wait until next time then.

Scottish Stout, not that strong, heavy on the amber malt, all foreign hops, not stupidly under-attenuated or sweet. But surprisingly bitter.



Recipe . . .

1885 Thomas Usher Stout
pale malt	6.50 lb	54.17%
black malt	1.00 lb	8.33%
amber malt	4.50 lb	37.50%
Cluster 90 min	1.00 oz
Strisselspalt 60 min	0.75 oz
Spalt 30 min	2.25 oz
OG	1050
FG	1015
ABV	4.63
Apparent attenuation	70.00%
IBU	62
SRM	32
Mash at	154º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

Bye bye badman

Been such a good boy today. Got up early and wrote three recipes before breakfast - that's me done until the end of March with watery Whitbread recipes from the that most exhilirating of decades beer-wise, the 1950's. I've saved the best until last, dropping through the gravities from the watery to the less than watery, before plunging the real, er, watery depths. Can't wait, can you?

I have to bash out a load of this stuff. Since I unwisely started wearing the grindstone of daily posting as a necklace, long holidays have become a logistical Haversham. Can't guarantee time, inclination, sobriety or net connection to ever post while off viking. I preload posts for the full stretch. A 10-day trip is bad enough. Two weeks of posts needed before off-fucking. 15 days means near enough three full weeks worth of bollocks.

Why don't I simply stop posting every day? You don't know me if you'd ask that question. Obsesssive isn't just my middle name. It's like the full name of a Leeds fan of a side that won the league with 11 brothers from the Obsessive family*.

Wrote another three posts this evening. Four, including this. Ten more days until I travel. Sixteen more posts to write. That's almost one a day.

Numbers**. Can never give those tricky temptresses a rest.




* For those of you non-1970's curious, that means Ronald Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Pattinson.


** I really have a book that has more numbers than a lottery.

Last weekend in Brussels

Running short on words. So just some photos.

Let's Brew Wednesday – 1954 Whitbread Mackeson Stout

Continuing my series of post-WW II Whitbread Stout recipes, we’ve arrived at the granddaddy of them all: Mackeson.

Why have I jumped forward a few years? There’s a very good reason. It’s all to do with how Whitbread added the lactose. It wasn’t added until post fermentation and doesn’t appear in the brewing log at all. I think it’s because of the deal Whitbread had with the excise on lactose. That effectively they didn’t pay any duty on the gravity die to lactose. By adding it after fermentation, it wouldn’t appear in the gravity reading taken for tax purposes before fermentation.

Normal sugar primings added at racking time were taxed. For them, tax was paid on the gravity of the sugar solution in exactly the same way as for a wort.

Getting back to my point, because of the way Whitbread added the lactose, I have no idea how much. But, I do have analyses of the finished beer. By looking at the difference in OG between that and the version in the brewing log, I can work out the quantity of lactose used. Simple, eh? The first post-war analysis I have is from 1954, so that’s the year I’ve picked.

As for the recipe, it was the same as Whitbread Stout and Extra Stout with which it was parti-gyled. The only real change in the grist from the late 1940’s Stouts is the replacement of pale malt with more mild malt. The No.2 invert is in place of a proprietary sugar called Duttsons in the log.

In the 1950’s Mackeson was amazingly popular. This probably comes from around the peak of its fame. Whitbread produced the beer in just about every brewery it controlled. It’s suffered a sharp decline since then but remains one of the few big bottled beer brands from the 1950’s that is still on the market.

Oh. Nearly forgot. You’ll need to add caramel to get that colour.



Here’s that lovely recipe . . . .

1954 Whitbread Mackeson Stout
mild malt	6.50 lb	66.67%
brown malt	0.75 lb	7.69%
choc. Malt	0.75 lb	7.69%
no. 3 sugar	0.75 lb	7.69%
no. 2 sugar	0.25 lb	2.56%
lactose	0.75 lb	7.69%
Fuggles 75 min	0.75 oz
Fuggles 40 min	0.75 oz
Goldings 20 min	1.00 oz
OG	1046.6
FG	1019.5
ABV	3.59
Apparent attenuation	58.15%
IBU	29
SRM	50
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	75 minutes
pitching temp	64º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

Hops in 1944

I’m going back in time a little. To when the war was still on. Times were still tough, but British brewers were already looking forward to a world without war.

“HOPS
By our Special Correspondent
BOUND up with the maintenance of public morale is the provision of adequate supplies of beer, and to this end brewers and farmers are working assiduously. It is therefore good to know that as far as one ingredient of beer is concerned—hops—there is satisfactory news to report. True there has been until very recently an absence of rain in the South and Midland areas, but fortunately, rain is not essential at this stage of the hops development. It is later, towards the end of July, that moisture is most essential. The frosts, which virtually destroyed the fruit crops, had little effect on the hops and consequently, speaking generally, our ran say that the young plants have wintered well and barring unforeseen troubles the prospects be good. It was anticipated that mere might be insufficient labour for the work of hop-tying, but it seems this has been largely overcome, thanks to the assistance of many volunteers. Shortage of labour and fertilisers will continue to be the farmers' worry so long as the war lasts, and maybe even for some time afterwards. However, the agricultural community has wrought miracles during the past four years, and no doubt will continue to do so in the future, always provided that the weather is favourable, and granted this prerequisite, a satisfactory yield in 1944 may be expected.”
“Journal of the Incorporated Brewers Guild 1944”, page 145.

A shortage of labour and materials. That pretty much sums up the war years and their immediate aftermath. What always strikes me about the British approach in WW II is the pragmatism. And being realistic. They realised peace wouldn’t immediately solve all their problems.

By and large, Britain was lucky with the weather during WW II. There were bumper crops in some years. Like with hops in 1943:

“The general hop position is better now than was the case this time last year. The average holding of brewers is reported to be sufficient to maintain the present consumption rate until the middle of December, 1944. This improvement is due to the larger crop produced in 1943. The Hops Marketing board received 168,764 pockets, as compared with 151,496 pockets of the 1942 crop, or an increase of 12,600. This extra production, as brewers will remember, permitted the delivery of 95% of all contracts compared with 80% the previous season. It is interesting to note, however, that the increase in quantity was accompanied by a decrease in quality, at least when judged by preservative value. The July 1943 issue of this Journal published the average preservative values of the best known varieties of the crop, determined from analyses of a large number of samples. Below is a comparative table of the two crops.

	1942 crop			1943 crop
	alpha resins	beta resins	P.V.	alpha resins	beta resins	P.V.
Fuggles	5.75	6.97	81	4.97	8.88	79
Goldings Varieties	6.2	7.62	87	5.65	8.35	84
Goldings	6.33	6.99	90	5.27	8.69	82

“Journal of the Incorporated Brewers Guild 1944”, page 145.

Being able to supply 95% of the hops was pretty good going. There had been some difficult times with hops. Like in 1940 when one of the first raids of the London Blitz destroyed a third of that year’s crop. Too late they realised storing virtually the whole harvest in central London (Southwark) wasn’t a great idea. The government ordered a 20% cut in hop rates to preserve supplies.

What drew me to this article were the fact it gave details of the alpha and beta acid content of the hops. The values for 1942 are quite a bit higher than BeerSmith tells me they should be.

Next time we’ll be looking at preservative value and how it was calculated.