Diamant Brauerei Magdeburg

A change of pace today. I'm still up to my eyebrows in Scottish beer. But I thought I'd offer you a little relief from it. Witj some DDR labels.

There's something about DDR label design I just love. Not sure why. Partially nostalgia, I guess. For those fun days of the DDR. Oddly, I seem to be the only person who considered East Berlin a holiday paradise. But what else can you call somewhere beer is dirt cheap and you have more money than you can spend? It's so weird looking back. Weird that a walled city seemd somehow normal.

I wish I'd collected more labels at the time. I only have a handful though I know I drank dozens of different beers, mostly from Berlin, Sachsen and Thüringen.

But I digress. I'm supposed to be banging out a quick post of little more than some pretty beer labels. Labels from the Diamant Brauerei in Magdeburg. I never drank any of their beer that I can recall. Never been to Magdeburg, other than passing through it on the train to Berlin.

Brilliant ended up as part of Brau und Brunnen and closed in 1994. It's since re-opened as a museum and brewpub in part of the old premises.


Diamant Brauhaus
Alte Diamant Brauerei 21,
39124 Magdeburg.
http://www.diamant-brauhaus.de/
kontakt@diamant-brauhaus.de

Thinking about shit

Just about to start watching that New Zealand detective thing with Dolores. When I remembered I had no post for tomoroow. That's today now.

I've spent the last couple of days researching and writing about mashing temperatures. I've never really extracted and compared mashing details before. When I sellotaped the numbers together, I got this:

Mash and tap heats overview 1922 - 1934
Beer	mash heat	underlet heat	tap heat 1	tap heat 2	tap heat 3	tap heat 4
1928 Usher PA 60/-	151º F		148º F	160º F	152º F	147º F
1933 William Younger  XXP	152º F		150º F	153º F	155º F
1933 Drybrough P 60/-	152º F		148º F	160º F
1932 Lorimer & Clark XXP7	148º F	153º F
1930 Adnam PA			145.5º F	149º F	156º F	155º F
1930 Barclay Perkins XLK	148º F		155º F	153º F	157º F	153º F
1931 Fullers OBE, XX, X	147º F	151º F	148º F	147º F	147º F
1930 Courage KKK, MC, X	146º F	149º F
1922 Camden PA	149º F	155º F	154.5º F	157.8º F
1934 Tetley X1	147º F	152º F	155º F	153º F	147º F
Sources:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/70.
Adnam brewing record held at the brewery.
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/616.
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.
Camden Brewery brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/9/5.
Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/4.
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archives, document number WYL756/ACC3349/552.
Lorimer & Clark brewing record held at the Caledonian Brewery.

It explained the difference between English and Scottish mashing. And exposed Lorimer & Clark as the odd man out.

Can't say more. Dolores is getting restless.

Here's a prety label instead:

1851 William Younger DBS Stout

Like my life in general, the blog is hostage to my frantic attempts to finish the Scottish book.

I spent today extracting mashing details and boiling times. What everyone dreams of doing on their day off. Which is what today was for me. My 90% day.

Spent staring at brewing records. The most difficult bit. Exactly why the mashing stuff wasn’t in my standard spreadsheet. Too difficult to neatly record. That said, today’s big revelation came from doing exactly that. Lumping together information in a table. Thank you data.

As important as carving data into edible form is throwing together as many recipes as possible for the book. Noticing the early period was poorly represented, I jumped on this mid-19th-century Stout from William Younger.

The classic pale, brown, black malt combination is complimented by a shitload of hops. The attenuation is surprisingly high for something Scottish.

Have to get back to watching the TV with Dolores. Longish boil, quite warm fermentation. In my book I’ll be going into ball-crushing detail about fermentation temperatures.

OK Dolores. I’m, done.

1851 William Younger DBS Stout
pale malt	13.75 lb	71.43%
brown malt	3.75 lb	19.48%
black malt	1.75 lb	9.09%
Goldings 90 min	4.00 oz
Goldings 60 min	4.00 oz
Goldings 30 min	4.00 oz
OG	1078
FG	1015
ABV	8.33
Apparent attenuation	80.77%
IBU	139
SRM	50
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	184º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	64º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

William Younger Strong Ale grists 1922 - 1939

More cheating with a table from my hopefully soon-to-be-finished Scottish book.

Part of my writing process is gluing together tables. All sorts of numbers. Luckily most I've already tamed and coralled into spreadsheets. This lot required catching first as well.

I've been bum-bitten big bananas this past week by earlier lazy-arsing. When I didn't bother sweeping up every grain from the theshing floor. In my defence, some photos are pretty blurry.

I'm so glad I've seen records from other Scottish brewers. Because William younger were as  unusual as a Glaswegian fan of the England football team. If I relied totally on them, I'd have a false impression of Scottish brewing. And a weirdly false one. As you'll see.

See those grits percentages of around 30%? They aren't typical of Younger's beers. Most had more like 40%. At the same time as piling in the grits, Younger mostly laid off sugar. If you buy my book, you'll see how differently other breweries did things.

Talking of my new book, I just knocked off the section on Mild Ale 1914 to 1920. And added to the bit on Pale Ale for the same years. I hope it isn't getting out of hand. I keep thhinking of new stuff to add.

I need to go for my walk. So here's Younger's comedy grists:

William Younger Strong Ale grists 1922 - 1939
Year	Beer	OG	pale malt	crystal malt	MA malt	grits	lactose
1922	1	1082	69.70%			30.30%
1922	3	1053.5	69.86%			30.14%
1929	1	1087	69.70%			30.30%
1929	3	1054.5	68.28%			31.72%
1933	1	1085.0	67.35%			28.57%	4.08%
1933	3	1055.0	67.44%			32.56%
1933	3 pale	1055.0	65.85%			34.15%
1939	1	1084.0	74.29%	5.71%	2.86%	13.33%	3.81%
1939	3	1053.0	88.73%			11.27%
Sources:
William Younger brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/2/63, WY/6/1/2/68, WY/6/1/2/70 and WY/6/1/2/76.

William Younger dry hopping 1921 - 1939

I'm still labouring away at the number face. Which is why I've no time for proper posts. Just ones cheaply spun from a few shoddy numbers.

I'm pulling together all sorts of data for the Scottish book. Lots of which has never been assembled before. At least not that I've ever come across.

Dry hopping is a good example. Has anyone ever seriously compared English and Scottish dry hopping routines? I think not. Probably because bugger all people are interested in this sort of technical shit. Apart from me and hopefully a few geeks.

On my evening walk, I realised this table needs reorganising. Bum. More work. I was planning on having the book done by the end of next week. End of the month is more realistic. Especially if I keep adding stuff.

I estimated 35,000 - 40,000 words. I'm currently at 62,000 with a fair few holes still to fill. Two of the chapters have bugger all in their Techniques section. Need to fix that tonight with a new shaft down to the number seam.

Let me know what you make of this:

William Younger dry hopping 1921 - 1939 (oz. per barrel)
Year	1	3 Pale	XXX	DBS Btlg	Pale XXPS	Ext	XXP Btlg	LAE
1921	3.89	3.83	2.42	7.65	3.8			7.04
1933	2.01	2.06	1.98	6.10	2.02	6.52	1.82	4.85
1939	2.25	2.08	2.05	3.05	2.92	2.09	2.02	4.16
Source:
William Younger brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/2/63, WY/6/1/2/70 and WY/6/1/2/76.

1 and 3 are Scotch Ales, XX is Mild, DBS Btlg is Stout and the rest are Pale Ales.

Let's Brew Wednesday -1874 Cain XXX

What can I say? I’m rowing away in the writing gallery like crazy. Not much time for posts. Can’t waste words. Saving for book.

I’ll leave it to Kristen . . . . .

Kristen’s Version:
Notes: So we go from something super easy, refreshing, quaffable and easy going to this big bastard. It’s not so much that its big, though nearly 7% isn’t ‘small’, it’s the huge amounts of hops that go into this big fella. To me, something that’s perfect to go right next to that watery IPA we did last week. 

Malt:  Two malts. English pale and some brown malt. Even though only a small amount, the brown malt lends a lot of character to this sucker. Seriously, don’t leave it out. I really like the Fawcett stuff. Concerto malt is super malty if you can get it. If not some MCI pale would do wonders, or any type of Maris is great too. All that said, Canada Malting Pale malt is a take on English pale malt so if you haven’t ever used their stuff, you really should be. Play around and pick something neat.

Hops: This beer will be entirely different if you use high alpha hops over low alpha ones. First Gold or Brewer’s Gold would go swimmingly although are getting up there a bit. Why not play around with some of the newer Czech or German varieties? Kazbek’s are super bright, as well as some Hallertauer Melon or Blanc? Oh, man, a nice combo of NZ Wakatu, Riwaka and Motueka would really bring all that squishy fruit to this. Basically, make sure they are fresh, have some fun, keep the garlic chives out please.

Yeast: A nice English yeast will do nicely. Whatever your favorite house strain is, or play around with something new. Just make sure it’s healthy.

Cask: Standard procedure:
1) let the beer ferment until finished and then give it another day or so. For me right around 5-7 days.
2) Rack the beer to your vessel of choice (firkin, polypin, cornie, whatever).
3) Add primings at ~3.5g/L
4) Add prepared isinglass at 1ml/L
5) ONLY add dry hops at 0.25g/l – 1g/L.
6) Bung it up and roll it around to mix. Condition at 55F or so for 4-5 days and its ready to go. Spile/vent. Tap. Settle. Serve at 55F.

Mild or Stock

I've been busy with the sections in my new Scottish book on Mild and Stock Ales in the late 19th century.

It's reminded me what a pain Scottish brewing can be. They were way less consistent in their naming conventions. An X pretty much always means Mild Ale in England. Not so in Scotland. In fact, I often struggle to spot which beers might be Mild Ales.

Thomas Usher's beers are an example. I originally classified all their X Ales as Milds. But on closer inspection, it looked more likely that they were Stock Ales. Mostly based on hopping rate. And the recipe.

I'm not 100% sure that I've got it right. But what can I do? There are other Usher beers with the suffix M or MA which I am completely sure about. This is them:

Thomas Usher Mild Ales 1885 - 1914
Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
1885	54/- M	1062	1023	5.16	62.90%	5.00	1.42
1885	68/- M	1080	1025	7.28	68.75%	10.00	3.44
1914	44/- MA	1032	1012.5	2.58	60.94%	5.00	0.69
1914	50/- MA	1035	1013	2.91	62.86%	5.00	0.75
1914	60/- MA	1038	1015	3.04	60.53%	5.00	1.07
1914	80/- MA	1046	1016.5	3.90	64.13%	5.00	1.29
1914	100/- MA	1065	1027	5.03	58.46%	5.00	1.40
Sources:
Thomas Usher brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers TU/6/1/1, TU/6/1/2 and TU/6/1/5.

I bet you want to see thge Stock ales now? If you're still awake, that is. Here you go:

Thomas Usher Stock Ales 1885 - 1914
Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
1885	X	1050	1013	4.89	74.00%	9.00	2.00
1888	XXX	1054	1011	5.69	79.63%	11.00	3.58
1888	X	1050	1012	5.03	76.00%	11.00	2.75
1888	XX	1054	1012	5.56	77.78%	12.00	3.24
1894	XX 60/-	1055	1015	5.29	72.73%	10.00	2.77
1912	X 60/-	1052	1016	4.76	69.23%	6.75	1.49
1912	X	1045	1014.5	4.03	67.78%	6.50	1.21
Sources:
Thomas Usher brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers TU/6/1/1, TU/6/1/2 and TU/6/1/5.

See what I mean about the hopping? Though the gravities do seem low for Stock Ales.

Foeders

Despite being dead busy with my new Scottish book, I took some time off on Saturday to visit yet another new beer pub.

It's getting impossible to keep up with the beer scene in Amsterdam. John Clarke tipped me off about another new beer bar in the Pijp, Foeders. I thought I'd best check it out. Especially as it seemed rather more pub-like than last weeks visit, The Wateringhole. Having a Dutch name is a good start.

Foeders is located in a slightly out of the way bit of the Pijp, close to the Amstel river. It's also next door to the most extravagently attractive appartment building on the whole of Ceintuurbaan. Annoyingly, the tram stop that used to be directly outside the pub has been discontinued. Bastards at the GVB.

The lovely leeded glass door panel sets a pleasant tone on the way in. Once past it, the lingering smell of paint betrays how recently the place has opened. There's a definite Amsterdam feel inside, though with a few modern touches. The green paint scheme always makes me think of Amsterdam's jenever bars, which are lovely old pubs. At the back is a tiled fireplace. Typically Dutch.

The long bar down one wall is surprisingly low. Though you do sometimes see that in older Amsterdam pubs And there's a pretty carved bar back.

Overall, pretty good. Not bland at all and with a definite Amsterdam feel. Only real negative point: having the draught beer display on the back wall above the door to the ladies lavs, well away from the bar and the taps. Not very handy.

As for beers, there's a mix of old Belgian favourites like La Chouffe and Rodenbach, some local stuuff like Ij and Oedipus, plus some craft stuff from further afield. Not that I'm going to drink American beer in Amsterdam. You've no idea what condition it's going to be in.

A definite win for the Amsterdam pub scene.



Here's a few more photos:

Foeders  
Ceintuurbaan 257,
1074 CZ Amsterdam.
Tel: +31 6 36593100
https://www.facebook.com/Foeders/

Opening hours:
Sun - Thur 12:00–01:00
Fri - Sat 12:00–03:00

Pale Ale takes over Scotland

I'm still as busy as a flobble stick with my new Scottish book. As you must be able to tell from the low quality of my recent posts.

I've gone full reverse on the blog. Rather than using blog pieces to nail together a book, I'm jerry building posts from book scraps. Mostly tables. You can't have any of the words. I'm saving them for the book itself.

Very nicely. The book is coming along, I mean. I'm sure you wanted to ask about my progress. 52,000 words currently. Probably about another 20,000 to go.

That's for the full geek version. Which is what I'll be tarting around the US in April. A white-label version of the book packed with a ridiculous amount of information. Table after table. Literally hundreds of recipes.

Back to the nominal topic of this post, the dominance of Pale Ale in post-WW I Scotland. The table below is based on seven and a half weeks of brews in October and November. Just three beers made up over 90/- of Usher's output. All low-gravity Pale Ales. Clearly that was what the Scottish market demanded.. The stronger Pale Ales, 70/- and 80/-, were brewed in tiny quantities.

It's actually unusual that Usher still produced a real Mild Ale. Most Scottish brewers didn't bother any more.

Usher output by type 1st Oct - 20th Nov 1931
Beer	OG	barrels brewed	%
IPA	1032	1,067.5	19.32%
PA	1034	573	10.37%
PA 60/-	1040	3442.5	62.32%
PA 70/-	1047	240.25	4.35%
PA 80/-	1055	38.5	0.70%
MA	1040	92.5	1.67%
Stout 80/-	1052	34.75	0.63%
Brown Ale	1055	35	0.63%
Total		5,524
Source:
Thomas Usher brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TU/6/1/6.

Based on the amount of beer produced over the seven weeks or so, I reckon Usher brewed around 38,000 barrels a year.

Let's Brew - 1918 Thomas Usher X 60/-

To prove that WW I wasn’t all doom and gloom, here’s a Mild that’s not so watery.

The date is important, mind. The Government Ale recipe from Usher also dates from 1918. But it’s from November, while X 60/- is from January. A lot had happened between those two dates. Ironically, the watery GA, which was brewed on 13th November, is technically a post-war beer. In April 1918 the average gravity of all beer brewed by brewery was limited to 1030º*. I wonder if drinkers realised what was about to happen to their beer at the start of 1918?

What is a Mild? It’s a question I often ask myself, especially when looking at Scottish beer. Why do I classify this as a Mild? Because of the X in the name, really. But it all gets messy when you consider what this was parti-gyled with: PA. A beer that’s pretty obviously supposed to be a Pale Ale. Even more confusingly PA was weaker than X 60/-.

One reason I wanted to share this recipe with you is that it’s about the last period Mild was being brewed in any quantity in Scotland. Unusually, Usher continued to brew small quantities of a beer called MA until at least the 1930’s. Most other breweries produced nothing but Pale Ale, Strong Ale and the odd Stout.

It’s another very simple grist. The sugar type is a guess. It’s something called Greenock in the records. No idea what that was. But, as it’s in pretty much all their beers, I doubt it was a very dark type of sugar.

The hop variety is a guess, too. Usher didn’t bother specifying the hops in their logs at this point. Which is a bit frustrating. But by the late war years just about exclusively English hops were being used as there were more than enough to go around.


* "The Brewers' Almanack 1928" page 100.

1918 Thomas Usher X 60/-
pale malt	8.75 lb	92.11%
No. 2 invert sugar	0.75 lb	7.89%
Fuggles 90 min	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 min	0.75 oz
Fuggles 30 min	0.75 oz
OG	1043
FG	1014.5
ABV	3.77
Apparent attenuation	66.28%
IBU	27
SRM	6
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

McEwans and Youngers

Keeping the relationships between McEwans and Youngers clear in my head is quite a struggle. Let’s see if this helps.

I found it rather strange that the managing director of William McEwan should bear the name of the company’s greatest rival, William Younger. It turns out he was from a Younger brewing family, but not that one. He was a member of the George Younger family, brewers in Alloa. Though it seems he was related to William McEwan.

“THE LATE WILLIAM YOUNGER.
The death has taken place, at Midhurst, in his 67th year, of Mr William Younger, chairman and managing director of Messrs. William McEwan & Co., brewers, Edinburgh. The deceased, who was a brother of Viscount Younger, was well known the Borders. Several years ago he bought the estate of Ravenswood, near Melrose, which embraces the property Old Melrose, where the original church of St. Aidan was set up. He was a keen follower the Buccleuch and Lauderdale packs foxhounds.

Third son of the late Mr James of Messrs George Younger Son, Alloa, he went to Edinburgh as a young man, and entered the brewing business of his uncle, the late Mr McEwan. who was formerly M.P. for one of the divisions of the city, and donor of the McEwan Hall. Mr Younger attended scientific classes in Edinburgh University, and was fortunate in receiving the practical part of his training under the direction of his uncle. Both uncle and nephew early recognised that one must be able to brew before one can become a successful brewer. In 1886 he was left in charge of the great business while Mr McEwan attended to Parliamentary duties. Three years later, when the business converted into a limited liability company, Mr Younger was appointed managing director, and under his management the brewery at Fountainbridge increased in importance. In the conduct of the business he displayed great tact, shrewdness and fertility of resource for meeting unexpected emergencies. Mr Younger was vice-chairman of the Caledonian Railway Company and on its amalgamation with the Midland Company retained a seat on the directorate. In his earlier years was a member of the Edinburgh Polo Club team which brought the cup to Edinburgh from Hurlingham against all-comers. is survived by his widow, two sons, and a daughter.
Southern Reporter - Thursday 27 August 1925, page 5.

William Younger was a relatively young man – just 38 – when he took control of the brewery. It was quite a large concern for such a young man to be running. Though, given the profits it generated during the early years of his reign, he must have been doing something right.

It sounds as if the young William Younger, like many sons of brewing families, went to another company to serve his brewing apprenticeship. And then never returned to Alloa. At this time it was still usual for members of the owning family to learn to brew. It was considered a prerequisite for running a brewing concern. That would change in the 20th century, when owners served as executives and the brewing was left to technicians.

Thomas Usher Mild Ales 1885 - 1914

You've probably guessed. Another table from my upcoming book on Scottish beer.

I've tried to avoid new research as much as possible. Some, I couldn't dodge. One being mapping fermentation temperatures properly. Not just the minimum and maximum temperatures, but the whole profile. Fairly tedious work. But it's delivered a result.

William Younger Shilling Ale and X Ale fermentations in 1885
			1st day		2nd day		3rd day		4th day
beer	OG	pitching heat	morning	evening	morning	evening	morning	evening	morning
60/-	1053	59.0º F	60.0º F	63.0º F	66.0º F	68.0º F	65.0º F	58.0º F
XX	1054	60.5º F	68.0º F	69.0º F	59.0º F	56.5º F	54.0º F	52.0º F	54.0º F
80/-	1064	59.0º F	61.0º F	64.0º F	70.0º F	70.0º F	63.0º F	57.0º F
XXX	1065	58.0º F	61.5º F	66.0º F	67.5º F	64.5º F	56.0º F	56.0º F	53.0º F
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/31.

For ages I'd been wondering what the difference was between William Younger's Shilling Ales and X Ales. Same OG, same ingredients. But look at the difference in the fermentations.

Now I just have to guess why.

Oh. And here's a nice William Younger label:

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