The long decline of Porter and Stout

One of the joys of  writing a proper book is putting material together in a proper order. A joy, because that's when you notice stuff. Information you already have, put into a new context.

There's been plenty of that serendipity as I plod my was through the fields of Stout history. The new book is full of tables, of course. It wouldn't be right without lots of tables. The information I mostly collected years ago. But I'm mostly using it slightly differently from how I have before. Giving me the occasional dazzling new insight. And plenty of dully gleaming ones.

This is a table I assembled for the interwar chapter. Whitbread brewing records have dead handy summaries of the quantity of each beer brewed week by week in the final few pages. Allowing us to trace the decline of not just Porter, but also Stout.

An inexorable decline throughout the whole period. With Porter and Stout dropping from a very respectable 35% in 1921 to just 22% in 1939. I would tell you what happened after that. But the bastards stopped recording the totals in 1940.

The revelation? I hadn't noticed just how much how much Whitbread Stout sales were on the slide between the wars.

S = Stout
CS = Country Stout
LS = London Stout
ES= Extra Stout
MS = Mackeson Stout
SSS = Treble Stout

In the 1920s, S, CS, LS and ES were idebntical.

Whitbread Porter and Stout output 1921 - 1939
	P	S	CS	LS	ES	MS	SSS	Total Porter & Stout	Total Ale & Porter	% Porter & Stout
1921	15,688	58,452		133,563	30,920			238,623	675,647	35.32%
1922	16,562	47,530	84,703	15,340	28,582			192,717	576,118	33.45%
1923	14,165	39,960	68,326	20,866	26,660			169,977	505,097	33.65%
1924	15,948	37,834	74,258	23,442	26,710			178,192	551,616	32.30%
1925	14,943	35,396	62,357	22,262	28,974			163,932	527,977	31.05%
1926	13,511	34,567	20,721	69,724	29,990			168,513	512,528	32.88%
1927	10,708	30,087		86,569	22,361			149,725	462,250	32.39%
1928	10,105	30,017		85,992	16,039			142,153	488,357	29.11%
1929	5,558	17,284		51,624	11,313			85,779	443,888	19.32%
1930	13,840	25,643		90,801	20,724			151,008	535,271	28.21%
1931	13,389	17,109		93,094	20,027			143,619	495,805	28.97%
1932	10,493			100,632	15,342			126,467	442,755	28.56%
1933	9,653			97,810	13,973			121,436	471,190	25.77%
1934	9,444			91,660	21,116			122,220	501,180	24.39%
1935	8,006			89,617	25,646			123,269	528,370	23.33%
1936	6,836			85,748	16,868	14,428		123,880	540,995	22.90%
1937	5,939			82,900	10,805	27,730		127,374	565,230	22.53%
1938	5,133			75,651	10,022	36,769		127,575	569,532	22.40%
1939	3,810			67,177	6,037	50,890	928	128,842	590,695	21.81%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/114, LMA/4453/D/09/115, LMA/4453/D/09/116, LMA/4453/D/09/117, LMA/4453/D/09/118, LMA/4453/D/09/119, LMA/4453/D/09/120, LMA/4453/D/09/121, LMA/4453/D/09/122, LMA/4453/D/09/123, LMA/4453/D/09/124, LMA/4453/D/09/125, LMA/4453/D/09/126, LMA/4453/D/01/086, LMA/4453/D/01/087, LMA/4453/D/01/088, LMA/4453/D/01/089, LMA/4453/D/01/090,  LMA/4453/D/01/091, LMA/4453/D/01/092, LMA/4453/D/01/093, LMA/4453/D/01/094, LMA/4453/D/01/096, LMA/4453/D/01/096, LMA/4453/D/01/097, LMA/4453/D/01/098, LMA/4453/D/01/099, LMA/4453/D/01/100, LMA/4453/D/01/101, LMA/4453/D/01/102, LMA/4453/D/01/103, LMA/4453/D/01/104, LMA/4453/D/01/105, LMA/4453/D/01/106 and LMA/4453/D/01/107.

The other brown malt

I was browsing through Richardson's "Statistical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing" and stubbed my toe on some analyses of malt from the early 1780s.

Great. I thought. These will come in handy when I try to calculate the gravity of beers based on the quantity of malt used. I was amazed at what I saw. Brown malt with an extract of 72 lbs and even 78 lbs per quarter. To put this into context, the pale malts vary between 62 lbs and 82 lbs. In the 19th century, around 80 lbs was standard.

There's one exception: the brown malt made in Hertfordshire. That gives the shit extract I'd expect of 54 lbs and 56 lbs.

Richardson explains the difference in the method of manufacture. The stuff from Hertfordshire being "blown" or popped, like popcorn. And so getting larger in volume. Malt was sold in quarters, a volume measure. Making a quarter of brown malt much lighter than one of pale.

Outside of Hertfordshire, as they didn't pop their brown malt, it would have weighed around the same per quarter as pale malt. So I suppose it makes sense that the extract wouldn't be that much worse.

Great to see all of this in hard numbers. And to see just how different the "other" brown malt was.

London brewers used Hertfordshire malt. The question is: why? Was it all they had readily available in the pre-railway days?

Malt from the barley of 1781.
No.	Colour	Character	Growth of barley.	Average prod. of ferm. matter
1	pale	well made	North Lincolnsh.	82 lbs
2	pale	indifferent	North Lincolnsh.	75 lbs
3	pale	well made	Norfolk	72 lbs
4	pale	well made	Yorksh. woulds	82 lbs
5	brown	well made	Yorksh. woulds	78 lbs
6	brown	well made	Ware, in Herts	56 lbs
Source:
Statistical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing by J. Richardson, 1784, G. Robinson, London, page 67.

Malt from the barley of 1782.
No.	Colour	Character	Growth of barley.	Average prod.
1	pale	well made	Yorksh. woulds	62 lbs
2	pale	well made	Bremen	58 lbs
3	pale	well made	Norfolk	67 lbs
4	pale	indifferent	Norfolk	56 lbs
5	brown	well made	Ware, in Herts.	54 lbs
Source:
Statistical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing by J. Richardson, 1784, G. Robinson, London, page 67.

Malt from the barley of 1783.
No.	Colour	Character	Growth of barley.	Average prod.
1	pale	well made	North Lincolnsh	74 lbs
2	pale	well made	Berwick on Tweed	63 lbs
3	pale	indifferent	Yorksh. woulds	65 lbs
4	pale	well made	Yorksh. woulds	75 lbs
5	brown	well made	Yorksh. woulds	72 lbs
Source:
Statistical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing by J. Richardson, 1784, G. Robinson, London, page page 68.

How to interpret brewing records - part five: gyling and fermentation

We'll be finishing off this Barclay Perkins record today. With all things fermentation related.

First up are the gyling details.

Pretty simple this.

Column 1:
Volumes of the wort in barrels, firkins and gallons.

Column 2:
Gravity of the worts in SG. Obviously, with the 1000 missed off.

The three worts combined were 113 barrels, 2 firkins and 1 gallon at 1077º.

Fermentation record is next.

Column 1: Day
Day of the week

Column 2: Time
Time of day. "E" = PM, "M" = AM.

Column 3: Saccr.
"Saccharometer". The gravity in SG.

Column 4: Therm.
"Thermometer". The temperature in Fahrenheit.

Each row records a stage in the fermentation. It's not a full record, covering the first two days and then jumping to racking time. the beer was racked at 22:00 on 12th October with a gravity of 1027º and at 59º F.

Now onto yeast details.

Column 1:
Date and time pitched.

Column 2:
The temperature in Fahrenheit.

Column 3: yeast
lbs of yeast, beer it was harvested from, that beer's gyle number.
For example: 30lbs of yeast from SDP, gyle number 113.

Finally, one I'm not 100% sure about. I think it's details of when the beer was cleansed. That is, when is was moved from a round fermenter to pontos for the yeast to be removed.

First row:
Date and time; "ins." inches - distance from the brim of the vessel to the surface of the liquid; "Heat" the temperature of the wort in Fahrenheit.

Second row:
"Hrs." Time in hours between pitching and cleansing; "Sacc." gravity of the wort in SG.
 

That was fun. Anyone up for more punishment? I could run through what I call "Scottish format" brewing records. If anyone could be arsed enough to read it.

Let's Brew - 1820 Truman Stout

We’re now firmly in the black malt era. Which, obviously has had an impact on grists.

With tax reduced since the end of the war with France in 1815, gravities have bounced back up, Leaving Truman Stout 8º higher than in 1812.

The addition of black malt has enabled a reduction in the brown malt content from 35% to 22%. The overall effect of which is to leave the colour about the same as before. Which was probably the objective.

No mashing details for you this time. As the bastards at Truman recorded the temperatures in code. The temperatures given below are just a guess, based on earlier Stout mashing schemes.

Two types of English hops from the 1819 and 1820 harvests. Most likely from Kent.

1820 Truman Stout
pale malt	13.25 lb	77.37%
brown malt	3.75 lb	21.90%
black malt	0.125 lb	0.73%
Goldings 120 min	2.75 oz
Goldings 60 min	2.75 oz
Goldings 30 min	2.75 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1072
FG	1015
ABV	7.54
Apparent attenuation	79.17%
IBU	97
SRM	22
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	64º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

 

How to interpret brewing records - part four: remarks and boil

I'm still going with this. I thought I might as well get all the way through explaining this record.

Here we go, then.

First bit is easy.
"3 gallons 6 pint of caramel"

No need to explain that. Not a huge amount across 113 barrels.

Onto the next column "Remarks".
19 cwts Garton's No. 3 Sacc."
That's No. 3 invert sugar. 18 cwts = 9.5 quarters. It appears as "Sacc" in the ingredients.

"Company's liquor treated with 3 oz Kainit per Brl of liquor used; not quite boiled $ allowed to cool down to mshing heat"

Kainit is some sort of potassium salt.

Next column "Tap Samples".
I'm guesssing this is the gravity at the start and end of runoff.

"Time of boiling"
2 hours for each wort.

Next unheaded column: "inch" pre-boil.
For both worts: 21. This is the distance from the top of the liquid to the rim of the vessel in inches.

Next unheaded column: volume pre-boil.
For both worts 79.5 barrels.

Next unheaded column: "inch" post-boil.
This time different for each wort.

Next unheaded column: volume post-boil.
For both worts 70.75and 60 barrels.

The bottom row shows the combined volume of the two worts pre- and post-boil.

Wasn't that fun? No, you're right. It wasn't. Gyling and fermentation next time.

Coming along nicely

My book about London Stout. Seven out of eleven chapters are complete. Or at least the bones of them are.

The first three chapters, covering the period up to 1780, are unstarted. They're the most difficult ones because I have so little hard information. And you know how much I love numbers. I suppose they'll be pretty short. I'm leaving them until last because, well, they require the most work. And I hate work.

I've been finishing off the odd bit from the other chapters and tidying up a little. Mostly this week, though, it's been writing recipes. They take time. And, if I complete my plan, there will be loads of them. I've just about got up to 1850 and there are 44 already. To get all the way to the 1970s will take at least 100 more.

Which all depends on me being arsed.

Just about 35,000 words so far. Not sure how many more there will be. I have been known to get carried away.

Was roasting malt banned in WW I?

War brought with it all sorts of restrictions. From which malt wasn’t spared. Though they weren’t the ones often bandied about.

Various writers have asserted that there was a ban on roasting malt. Which finished off Porter, stopped the brewing of Stout and left the UK market wide open for Guinness. Except that never happened.

There were plenty of Orders from the Food Controller relating to malt. None of them mentions roasted or coloured malt. I won't go through the whole lot. They all concern the manufacture, transport and sale of malt. The first Order, in February 1917, forbade all three, without the express permission of the Food Controller.  *

The last Order, in February 1918, only allowed maltsters to produce the quantity of malt required to brew the maximum barrelage set for the first six months of 1918.  **

A cursory glance at the grists reveals that brewers retained access to supplies of roasted malts. Courage are a good example, as they brewed Stout uninterrupted through all of the war years.

There was a big reduction in the roast malt content, particularly in the form of brown malt, in 1917. It still averaged around the 20% level for the latter war years.  

Courage Double Stout/Stout grists 1914 - 1920
Date	Year	Beer	pale malt	brown malt	black malt	total malt	total roast malt
21st Oct	1914	Double Stout	60.22%	19.59%	10.52%	90.33%	30.11%
10th Mar	1915	Double Stout	58.43%	20.22%	10.11%	88.76%	30.34%
22nd Sep	1915	Double Stout	61.48%	20.23%	10.51%	92.22%	30.74%
1st Dec	1915	Double Stout	59.20%	20.62%	11.31%	91.13%	31.93%
10th May	1916	Double Stout	60.10%	20.03%	10.02%	90.15%	30.05%
3rd Jan	1917	Double Stout	64.41%	10.17%	8.47%	83.05%	18.64%
24th Oct	1917	Double Stout	68.69%	9.81%	8.41%	86.92%	18.22%
16th Jan	1918	Double Stout	69.79%	8.82%	11.23%	89.84%	20.05%
2nd May	1918	Stout	68.73%	10.91%	10.91%	90.55%	21.82%
2nd Jul	1919	Stout	67.53%	8.76%	11.34%	87.63%	20.10%
1st Oct	1919	Stout	69.61%	7.84%	9.80%	87.25%	17.65%
21st Jan	1920	Stout	67.30%	9.24%	13.64%	90.18%	22.87%
Sources:
Courage brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/08/247, ACC/2305/08/248, ACC/2305/08/249, ACC/2305/08/250 and ACC/2305/08/251.

 I suppose roasting malt was banned in a way. Because making any sort of malt was.

 

* "Food Supply Manual October 1917", pages 68-69.

** "Food Supply Manual April 1918", pages 167-168.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1816 Whitbread Stout

A very important recipe today. Because it's the last iteration of Whitbread Stout, before the introduction of black malt.

The grist has more coloured malts than in 1807. They make up almost 50% of the grist, resulting in a considerably darker colour. Which has me wondering: were they using some sort of caramel colouring in 1807? It was outlawed in 1816 – had Whitbread upper the brown and amber malts to compensate?

The log doesn’t betray much information about the mashing process. It doesn’t even list tap heats, just the strike heat. Which is, I suppose, better than nothing. Just.

Mash number	strike heat
1	168º F
2	165º F
3	175º F
4	165º F

English hops, of course. Probably from Kent. Definitely from the 1814 and 1815 crops. 

1816 Whitbread Stout
pale malt	7.75 lb	50.00%
brown malt	4.50 lb	29.03%
amber malt	3.25 lb	20.97%
Goldings 120 min	2.00 oz
Goldings 60 min	2.00 oz
Goldings 30 min	2.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1064
FG	1017
ABV	6.22
Apparent attenuation	73.44%
IBU	72
SRM	23
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	63º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

How to interpret brewing records - part three: mashing

It seems I am continuing this series. At least for the time being, It's turning out to be less work - and less distracting - than I had feared.

Now we've looked at the ingredients, it's time to move on to the process. Starting with the most vital of them: mashing.

This is an area where there is a big variation between breweries as to what was recorded. Some record little more than the strike and tap temperatures, with nothing about how long it was mashed and left to stand.

I've chosen a Barclay Perkins log as an example because it's clear and informative.

1st column "Time of Standing"
Though it tells us a lot more than that. It also says what the operation was.

"1m 1/2 hr" first mash stood for 30 minutes
"M UM 1 1/2 hrs" underlet mash stood for 90 minutes
"2M" second mash
"S" sparge

An underlet mash is when water is added to the mash from the bottom and the rakes spun a few times to mix it thoroughly with the grain. The idea is to raise the temperature of the mash by a couple of degrees. It's a simple form of a step mash.

2nd column "L"
Standing for liquor, or water. Volumes in barrels. The underlet, the second row, was always a relatively small volume.

3rd column "H"
Standing for heat. The temperature of the water in Fahrenheit.

4th column "T"
Tap temperature in Fahrenheit. That is, the temperature of the wort when drawn off the mash tun.

5th and 6th Columns "Grist"
The quantity in quarters and the type of malt. This was necessary when a brew was split over more than one mash tun and the quantities used weren't the same in all of them.

7th column "Weight per bushel"
Multiply by 8 to get the weight of a quarter. Note that none of them - not even white malt - manages to reach the nominal weight of a quarter of 336 lbs.

The two numbers in pencil underneath the table are, I believe, the initial heats after the first infusion and the underlet.

Are you still having fun? I wonder who will get bored first, me or you?

How to interpret brewing records - part two: header and ingredients

Not sure how long I'll be arsed to do this. If you want me continue you'd best be really enthusiastic. Even better, donate some money. That's the best way to incentivise me to continue.

We'll start with a really easy bit. You should be able to work out the header without my help.

 Working from left to right:

The date: Wednesday 7th October 1891

The weather: A (atmosphere) 49º (F) Fine

The beer: BS (Brown Stout) 26 (brew number of Brown Stout, i,e this is the 26th brew of it this brewing year) 

The gyle number: No. 122

That was pretty simple. Next it's the turn of the grist.

 First are the malts, measured in quarters of 336 lbs and bushels of 42 lbs.. There are five of them:

1 quarter 2.5 bushels C (crystal malt)

3 quarter 2 bushels HB (Hertfordshire brown malt)

7.5 bushels of HA (Hertfordshire amber malt)

2 quarters 3 bushels of roasted malt

22 bushels and one bushel of W (white malt)

Total 28 quarters 4 bushels and 30 quarters.

Why are there two totals? Not totally sure, but I think the one on the left is weight quarters, i.e. 336 lbs, and the one on the right is volume quarters. Because a quarter was originally a volume measure. There were big differences in the weight of a quarter. In this brew, they varied between 268 lbs and 320 lbs, with the roasted malts being the lightest.

Finally there's the sugar:

Sacc 9.5 quarters

Note that a sugar quarter was 224 lbs.

Now the hops.

Four types of hops:

EKs /91 (East Kent, 1891 harvest) 1.24 (1 quarter of 28 lbs, 24 lbs: total 52 lbs)
EKs /91 (East Kent, 1890 harvest) 1.24 (1 cwt, 2 quarters, 14 lbs: =112+56+14, total 182 lbs)
EKs /91 (East Kent, 1889 harvest) 1.24 (1 quarter of 28 lbs, 24 lbs: total 52 lbs)
EKs /91 (East Kent, 1886 harvest) 1.24 (1 quarter of 28 lbs, 24 lbs: total 52 lbs)
Total 3.0.2 (3 cwt 0 quarters 2 lbs) 338 lbs = 3.0 b (3 lbs per barrel)
Peckham, Jenner, Harnett, Tompsett (names of the growers)

The growers are in the same order as the hops. That is, EKs /91 are from Peckham.

That wasn't too hard, was it?

A New Year's Wish

That I could get a publisher for "Scotland! vol 2" 

It won an award and all. I could have looked for one. But I'm a lazy bastard. And I don't know who to ask. Who would want to publish the definitive, myth-busting history of Scottish beer?

Or Weisse! Easily the best book about Berliner Weisse in English. With historic recipes, too.

Which publishers do you think might be interested? Let me know.

How to interpret brewing records - part one: general layout

What better way to start the year than reluctantly?

Against my better judgement, here's the start (possibly) of a series of posts on how to interpret brewing records.  Depending on the degree of apathy with which this post is greeted, I'll decide whether to continue.

A couple of people suggested I put together a pamphlet on the topic. Perhaps this is the start of that. Just not sure that I need yet another book project when I already have four unpublished manuscripts.

Right, let's go, shall we? I'm using as an example a Barclay Perkins Brown Stout log from 1891.

I'm using Barclay Perkins because their records are nicely laid out and contain lots of information.

Starting at the top, there's a header with basic information about the beer. Most of this stuff is pretty easy to understand.

At the top left are the mashing details:

All sorts of useful information there. Which I'll explain in detail in a later post.

To the right of that is space for details of a second mash tun and a column of remarks. In this case, there's also a remark in the second mash tun area.

Top right are boiling details:

On the left are some of the most important details, the grist:

Below are the hops:

Next along are the gyling details:

To its right, fermentation details:

Further along are the yeast pitching details:

Finally, I think these are cleansing details:

That's a quick run through the different elements of the log.

Let me know if you can make any sense out of these. And if you'd like me to continue. (Please say no.)

If there's enough demand, I'll explain each of the sections in mind-numbing detail. If you really want me to continue, maybe consider donating some money. That's an excellent way of encouraging me.