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Barclay Perkins Bookstore

Random Dutch beers (part nineteen)

It's Saturday, I've written next week's Let's Brew recipe and now it's time to relax. What better way that writing random rubbish about whichever beer I pick off the floor.

Some bottles I picked up several weeks ago in Nijmegen have been looking at me reproachfully for a while: "Why haven't you drunk me yet, you heartless bastard?" So I've flipped the top off one and slipped it into my Chimay glass.

It seems to be from a genuine brewery. You know, one of those places with lots of shiny pots and a smell of disinfectant. And really located in Nijmegen.

Donderwolk Het Experiment Nimweger Alt 6.2% ABV (€2.95 for 33cl)
It pours a pale copper colour. A whiff of minty hops in the aroma, but not much else. Bit thin in the gob considering it's over 6% ABV. It does have the firm, persistent bitterness that you get in a good Düsseldorf Alt. Not bad. Not bad at all. I'm quite enjoying this one. Though, at that price, I can't imagine buying it very often. If you think that 33cl of St. Bernardus Abt - let's face it, one of the best beers in the world - costs just €1.90 at Ton Overmars.

Even Dolores thinks it tastes nice. Or she did, unitl she saw the price: "2.95 for a little bottle like that? Phff." As always, she has a point.

Boer Koekoek Drie Tevreden Boeren 8% ABV (€3.20 for 33 cl)
Mucky pale yellow with a rather scummy head.  A bit like Little Dave (or Dave the Scab as crueller people called him). I wonder if he's still alive? Nice fresh hop smell. Mmm. That's pretty good. A bit spicy. As no spices are listed in the ingredients, I guess that comes from the yeast. Bit of sweetness hiding unconvindingly under the carpet. The bulge is obvious.

"Quite buttery." is Dolores's comment. In a good way. She likes it a lot, too.

I'm dead impressed with Nijmegen beer. De Hemel and Oersoep - both more than decent breweries - I already knew. I've learned they aren't alone in the city. A new beer destination?



Apologies about the blurry Boer Koekoek label. It seems to have been printed on an ink-jet printer and started running as soon as I got a little water on it.

Let's Brew Wednesday – 1947 Whitbread Stout

Stout, you may recall, originally meant strong. But, let’s be honest, it’s the last thing you could accuse this austerity-era Whitbread Stout of.

Though compared to Whitbread’s Ales of the same period, it has an incredibly complex grist, with five different types of malt. Note the lack of black malt. Whitbread stopped using it in 1926 and went over to chocolate malt instead. So I guess that means for a style Nazi that it’s neither a Porter nor Stout. The handful of malted oats was so they could package some as Oatmeal Stout. The percentage is typical of London versions.

A word on the sugar. There was also something called Duttson in the original. No real idea what that was so I’ve just upped the amount of No. 3 invert. As brewed the colour is way to low and it must have been colour corrected by the addition of caramel.

Just after WW II, when there were enough English hops to go around, foreign hops were a bit of a rarity. About the only ones you ever see are Czech. Presumably the Czech were exporting them to get hold of hard currency. And there would have been some pull, too, as British brewers liked Czech hops. I’ve just been writing some William Younger recipes from the 1860’s and they’re full of Saaz.

WS – Whitbread Stout – was only introduced after WW II. Or rather LS (London Stout) was rebranded as Whitbread Stout after the war. LS itself was only introduced in 1910, a new low-gravity (1055º) Stout to supplement their existing SS (1080º) and SSS (1092º). It was a bit of a con as a Stout, the gravity being only 2 degrees higher than their Porter. When SS and SSS were discontinued, LS became Whitbread’s main Stout, by 1920 with a gravity reduced to 1046º.

Unusually, its gravity was raised back to just about the pre-WW I level, 1054º, in 1922. It remained in the mid-1050’s until the Snowden budget of 1931, when it dropped to 1046º. Inevitably, WW II whittled away at its gravity and it ended the war at 1039º.

I’m pretty sure that at this time WS was available in both draught and bottled form. In London draught Stout remained a fairly common draught beer well into the 1950’s, long after it had disappeared everywhere else in the UK, other than Northern Ireland. After the draught version was dropped, it continued as a bottled beer. WS was eventually dropped sometime between 1967 and 1970.

It was fun trying to find a style in BeerSmith for this, as it doesn’t even vaguely match the specs of any Stout.


On that happy note, I’ll give you the recipe.

1947 Whitbread Stout
mild malt	4.50 lb	61.48%
pale malt	0.75 lb	10.25%
brown malt	0.50 lb	6.83%
chocolate malt	0.50 lb	6.83%
malted oats	0.07 lb	0.96%
no. 3 sugar	1.00 lb	13.66%
Fuggles 60 min	1.50 oz
Saaz 30 min	1.50 oz
OG	1035.3
FG	1010.5
ABV	3.28
Apparent attenuation	70.25%
IBU	37
SRM	65
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	60 minutes
pitching temp	64º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

Cornbrook Brewery and tank beer (part two)

We’re back looking at United Breweries’ tank beer experiment. Would the management’s enthusiasm for the system be vindicated?

I used to have this image of Bass Charrington as some corporate behemoth, crushing smaller brewers with their ruthless business practices. In turns out that they (and the companies that led up to their formation) were pretty clueless and made some terrible decisions. The brewery in Runcorn being the biggest. The tank beer fiasco fitted in the same tradition: management getting obsession with a technical innovation and forcing it through without taking into consideration practical objections.

United Breweries rather rashly decided to convert all of their Bradford pubs at the same time. Unsurprisingly, they encountered a range of teething problems:

“The great field trial began and every Bradford pub was changed over to the new system, big trading houses and small barrelage locals; large orders for equipment were placed with the manufacturers. It was felt, with an almost religious fervour, that a new age was dawning. Flags and bunting festooned the outside walls of the pubs, like a jubilee festivity; banners covered the interior walls to apprise the customers of the arrival of a draught beer Utopia. There was a conviction that the opposition brewery companies would dissolve in the face of this competition and would beg to be taken into the asylum of UB, handing over their share certificates in gratitude. Well, it did not work out quite like that, just as the kingdom of heaven does not appear on earth just because a banner is displayed saying it has arrived.”
"The Brewing Industry 1950 - 1990", by Anthony Avis, 1997, page 77.

The bunting didn’t stay up for long. I was going to write: imagine celebrating the arrival of tank beer today. Then remembered that’s exactly what happens when Pilsner Urquell tank beer is installed. It’s hard to keep track of what is and isn’t cool nowadays.

“The problems started with Porter Lancastrian being unable to deliver the quantity of equipment on time, and in their endeavour to do so their quality control over what they did deliver, suffered. The beer dispensing apparatus was poorly designed and poorly made; the mild steel bulk containers for the beer were lined with a plastic skin which reacted with the acids in the beer. The regulators for controlling the pressure at which the carbon dioxide gas operated were uncertain in their efficacy, resulting in excess amounts of foaming beer. Lastly, the licensees and their staffs were quite unused to the new equipment and the principles on which it operated; they were accustomed to the simplicity of wooden barrels and hand pulled pumps. Also, Cornbrook brewed their beer specifically for their sort of trade and the new dispensing system. In Yorkshire, the Tadcaster brewery was required to adapt a beer brewed for a traditional system, and found it could not be done.”
"The Brewing Industry 1950 - 1990", by Anthony Avis, 1997, page 77.

It sounds like the biggest problem was with the equipment itself: poorly made dispense equipment, tanks made from the wrong materials. If you couldn’t control the top pressure properly, excessive fobbing was always going to be the result. I would have though training, or at least preparing, the licensees for the new system would have been a good idea, too.

I wonder if any of the Yorkshire breweries were using Yorkshire square fermenters? I seem to remember that beers brewed in that type of fermenter have a higher CO2 content. Was that why the beers weren't suitable for being served from a tank under pressure?

Things went terribly wrong from the start:

“Cornbrook staff were asked for help, and their response was a denial there was any problem with the equipment, which worked perfectly for them. All calls for such help had to be put through DCM or his general manager, and it became apparent there were no answers to be obtained from them, or even directly from the manufacturers. It further emerged that the system as operated in Lancashire was on a much more limited scale and was installed only in their large barrelage houses. One week after the Bradford houses had been converted to the system, on a Friday evening, it so happened that Hammonds had barely one public house which could serve any beer - when the dispensers were used only mountains of froth came out of the nozzles. Everybody was at a loss what to do, because no one knew the cause.”
"The Brewing Industry 1950 - 1990", by Anthony Avis, 1997, page 77.

Cornbrook seem to have rolled out the system in a much more sensible way: slowly and only to pubs selling enough beer for it to be worth the trouble. I can imagine the anger of landlords unable to pour any draught beer on a Friday night. It must have had a tremendous impact on their takings. Because I know what I’d do in that situation: bugger off to a pub that could serve beer.

Next time we’ll learn how the problem of over-carbonation was solved.

The 1952 barley crop (part three)

We’re back with barley. This time on the island of Ireland, both sides of the border.

First the Republic of Ireland:

 “The Eire Ministry of Agriculture report says that in Southern Ireland prices paid to growers for malting barley, bought on a quota basis, were 37s. 6d. per cwt., with feeding barley from 24s. to 26s. per cwt. ex farm. ”
"Brewer's Guardian 1953", 1953, February page 13.

That’s a bit irritating, quoting the price per cwt., while the UK prices were per 400 lb quarter. Do you want me to translate that into a price per quarter? ‘Course you do. Here you go:

Irish barley prices in 1953
type	shillings per cwt.	shillings per 400 lb quarter
malting barley	37.5	133.9
feed barley min.	24	85.7
feed barley max.	26	92.9

Scottish barley prices in 1953
type	shillings per cwt.	shillings per 400 lb quarter
malting barley min.	33.6	120
malting barley max.	40.6	145
feed barley max.	29.12	104

English barley prices in 1953
type	shillings per cwt.	shillings per 400 lb quarter
malting barley min.	33.6	120.0
malting barley max.	43.4	155.0

You can see that there was little difference between the Republic of Ireland and the UK in terms of malting barley prices, but feed barley seems to have been a little cheaper.

Sadly nothing about the price of barley in Northern Ireland, just the quantity grown:

“In 1952 in Northern Ireland the yield from 5,399 acres was 6,500 tons compared with 3,300 tons in 1951 from 2,919 acres. ”
"Brewer's Guardian 1953", 1953, February pages 13 - 14.

Isn’t that interesting? They planted almost double the area of land with barley in 1952 that they did in 1953. Though both in terms of the amount of land planted and the amount of barley produced it was relatively insignificant compared to the whole of the UK, even after the big jump in 1952. N. Ireland was still responsible for less than 1% of the total. As this table shows:

Barley acreage and output UK and N. Ireland 1951 - 1952
	UK		N. Ireland		% N. Ireland
year	acres	tons	acres	tons	acres	tons
1951	1,908,000	1,939,000	2,919	3,300	0.15%	0.17%
1952	2,281,000	2,334,000	5,399	6,500	0.24%	0.28%
Sources:
"Brewer's Guardian 1953", 1953, February page 14.
1971 Brewers' Almanack, page 61.

Next time we’ll be looking at the complicated relationship between Guinness and Irish barley growers.

Schlenkerla 1963

The title says it all:

Random Dutch beers (part eighteen)

This is going to take a while. There must be a couple of dozen new Dutch beers sitting on my floor waiting for me to drink them. I'm sure you're glad to hear that.

First today is another from Tongval, a non-brewery owning outfit. But they do state on the label where the brewing took place: 'y Hofbrouwerijke in Belgium. It's another one I picked up in Deen just before Christmas, when they had beer scattered all over the shop.

Tongval Dubbele Tongval 7% ABV
Dark brown and pretty fizzy. Some foam was starting to poke its head out of the bottle before I had chance to pour it. It has a rather unpromising dusty aroma, like a neglected corner of a bedroom. In the mouth it has an odd chicory bitterness. Is it me, or do half of the beers I try have some sort of fermentation fault? I don't think it is me. Maybe I'm just too fussy. Just about on the drinkable side of unpleasant. Just about.

This next bunch don't have a brewery, either. Though they are based just around the corner from here. It's owned by the people who run a couple of pubs on the banks of the mighty Schinkel. According To RateBeer, this was brewed at Brouwerij Anders! in Belgium. (Nice use of an exclamation mark in the name.)

Two Chefs Brewing Green Bullet 5.7% ABV
It's juicly citrus in the aroma, as you'd expect a modern IPA to be. Passion fruit in the mouth with a tobacco-like bitterness lurking around like a kinderlokker at a playground. In short, a perfectly serviceable IPA. Not really much more I can say about it. I'd be happy to drink it regularly. Except Ij IPA has a slight edge. And is cheaper.



Getting that Tongval label off was such a spiky, pointy thing in the thing I mostly use for sitting on*.





* arse

English IPA

This all kicked off when I was writing a 1957 Whitbread IPA recipe recently. When I was plugging the details into BeerSmith, I chose as style English IPA. Makes sense. It's an IPA brewed in England.

It didn't fit with the specs of the style at all. Way too low in gravity. Looking more closely at the supposed characteristics of the style, I realised that virtually no IPA brewed in the UK in the 20th century matched the numbers. The gravity range given is 1050-1075º. While I'm pretty sure that almost no British IPA brewed between 1820 and 1980 was over 1070º.

I realised that the definition of English IPA wasn't based on anything as silly as IPA's brewed in the UK. But what American home brewers think and English IPA should be like. So similar to an American IPA, but not as hoppy. Or with English rather than US hops. I love the utter cheek of this statement in the 2008 BJCP style guidelines:

"The term “IPA” is loosely applied in commercial English beers today, and has been (incorrectly) used in beers below 4% ABV."

Right. So American home brewers get to decide what a British brewery can and cannot call IPA. The idea that there's some universal definition of IPA that means it can't be applied to a beer of under 4% ABV. While low gravity IPA has a long history. A much longer one than the modern American style. Yet for some reason that doesn't count.

The idea of IPA having wildly different strengths doesn't seem to have phased British drinkers. As I realised when I searched the newspaper archive for "Whitbread IPA". And came across this gem of an advert:

Why is it so revealing? Because it lists two very different kinds of IPA. You just need to look at the prices.

First you've got Whitbread IPA, selling for 2s 6d for a dozen pints, or 2.5d per pint. Further down the list are Worthington and Bass IPA, selling for the same price for half pints. Meaning they were double the price of Whitbread IPA.

If you look at the beers themsleves, the reason for the price difference is obvious: Bass and Worthington were much stronger.

Bass, Whitbread and Guinness 1898 - 1912
Year	Brewer	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1898	Bass	Pale Ale	IPA	1064.9	1015.6	6.43	76.02%
1901	Bass	Dog's Head	IPA	1065.6	1003.3	8.06	94.59%
1901	Bass	White Label	IPA	1063.8	1007.4	7.25	87.73%
1912	Whitbread	IPA	IPA	1048.8	1011.0	4.99	77.44%
1912	Whitbread	LS	Stout	1055.7	1013.0	5.65	76.65%
1901	Guinness	Foreign Extra Stout	Stout	1075.7	1013.3	8.18	82.42%
1901	Guinness	Extra Foreign Stout	Stout	1075.0	1013.2	7.86	81.34%
Sources:
Brockhaus' konversations-lexikon, Band 2 by F.A. Brockhaus, 1898
Wahl & Henius, pages 823-830
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/077 and LMA/4453/D/09/106.

Clearly drinkers weren't confused by being offered IPAs of very different strengths. Whitbread IPA is about as weak as beer got before WW I, when average gravity was 1055º. Today a beer in the same strength class would have an OG of around 1035º.

Note also the price premium for Pale Ale: despite being the same price as the Stout, the gravity was lower. Though the Jacob's Pilsener was even more overpriced, costing the same as a Burton Pale Ale, when its gravity would have been much lower.

If early 20th-century drinkers could get their heads around low-gravity IPA, what's the problem today?

Cornbrook Brewery and tank beer

Cornbrook  was a Manchester brewery bought by United Breweries, the successor to Hammonds, in 1961. It was a mid-sized brewery like many others. But one thing made it special: replacing cask with tank beer.

DCM was David Constable Maxwell, managing director of Cornbrook,

“Under DCM's tutelage, Cornbrook had pioneered their system of handling draught beer through delivery by motor tanker wagon into bulk containers in the outlets and dispensing it by measuring pumps on the counters. It was popularly called tank beer, and had its origins in a system used by Hull Brewery company in that city from the 1920s. It had been updated in the light of modern scientific application and was manufactured by a Lancashire company Porter Lancastrian, with which DCM was connected, although, unusually for him, he did not reveal this until actually asked. As stated, bitter beer was taken from the brewery by tanker and filled into metal tanks in the cellars of public houses and kept under carbon dioxide pressure, and thence through a measuring pump into the customers' glasses. The principle was good, in that all responsibility for quality was removed from the licensee, as was the necessity to ensure the scrupulous cleanliness of all utensils in the retail outlet exposed to the atmosphere.”
"The Brewing Industry 1950 - 1990", by Anthony Avis, 1997, page 75.

The Hull Brewery used large ceramic jars to store beer in pub cellars. There was a bit of a controversy back in the 1970’s whether their beer counted as cask or not. It was rough filtered and the ceramic vessels it was served from weren’t pressurised, unlike Cornbrook’s metal tanks. I seem to remember CAMRA accepting it nationally, but the Hull branch not putting any pubs in the Good Beer Guide that sold it.

Just checked the 1978 and 1980 Good Beer Guides. Hull counted as cask in 1978, but not in 1980, when the GBG notes that all their beer was filtered. Obviously CAMRA had a change of heart.

Obviously, for the free trade Hull didn’t use tanks. The Town Hall Tavern in Leeds used to sell their Bitter, presumably from a cask, but filtered. I don’t recall it standing out in either a good or a bad way.

The move to tank beer was prompted by a recurring theme in the 20th century: publicans messing up the beer in the pub cellar. Keg and tank beer were seen as a way of taking a landlord’s incompetence out of the equation. Foolproof beer was the aim. Of course, it never quite worked out like that. 

The enthusiasm of some management for tank beer saw United Breweries rather rashly rush into adopting it more widely in the group.

“DCM sang the praises of the system extravagantly, as did his general manager, Joe Barlow, when Cornbrook came into the UB group. Lightning and carefully controlled tours of the brewery and as carefully controlled inspections of selected pubs, were arranged to make its virtues known more widely to other executive managers in UB. Since the system was new, it had not been tested on a large scale - of time, dimension or its tolerance of draught beers brewed differently to that of Cornbrook. Apart from the assertions of the system's success by the Cornbrook directorate, independent actual and factual statistical evidence was hard to come by; it was therefore difficult for an objective assessment of its merits to be made. However, WTD [William Tudor Davies] who had advanced his career from being the outside management consultant from Urwick Orr & Partners to being the managing director of Hammonds, and then the sales director of UB, was convinced the system should be adopted, despite doubts within the company that it still had to be proved. The compromise was to have a field trial of the system on a grand scale, in that all the group's outlets in the Bradford area were converted to the "tank beer" system.

WTD was convinced it was a significant breakthrough in brewing technology and product service to the customer.”
"The Brewing Industry 1950 - 1990", by Anthony Avis, 1997, page 76.

No-one really understood the technology that well. But went ahead anyway. You can probably guess what happened. But I’m saving that for next time. I will leave you with a couple of Cornbrook beers:

Cornbrook Brewery beers 1927 - 1961
Year	Beer	Style	Price	size	package	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1927	Flagon Ale	Mild		pint	bottled	1028.2
1927	Barley Stout	Stout		pint	bottled	1049.3
1959	Barley Stout	Stout	12.5d	half	bottled	1046.3	1013.8	4.21	70.19%	250
1961	Keg Mild	Mild	16d to 17d	pint	draught	1035	1002.3	4.09	93.43%	20
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

Note that the Keg Mild is pale in colour.

Random Dutch beers (part seventeen)

It's early Saturday afternoon. The kids are still in bed. Dolores is fiddling with something in the kitchen. And I'm a bit bored. I know - let's do some more beer reviews sketches.

Dolores has picked me up some more beers from Deen, one of our local supermarkets. They've suddenly started selling beer from small breweries in Noord Holland, where the chain is based.

I'm really getting out of touch. This is from a brewpub in Zaandam.Which is just over the water from Amsterdam. Had no idea there waas a brewpub there.

Brouwerij Breugem Saense Bock 7.4% ABV (€1.50 for 33cl on special offer, usual price
€2)
Just about broewn enough for a Bok. Pretty sludgy - like hot chocolate. But not hot, obviously. Smells pleasantly malty like a straightforward, old-fashioned Dutch Bok. Though I note that they spell the word the German way with a "C". Quite sweet, but nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong with the cabbage-water finish. Not so nice. With an unpleasant edge of non-hop bitterness. Mister Sink will be having a drink.

Speaking of Deen, the next one was brewed specially for them by Jopen.

Cornelis Donker 8.5% ABV (€1.50 for 33cl on special offer, usual price €2)
It' a lovely deep coppery red, with a decent enough head. Smells like caramel and US hops. Quite an odd combinarion. It's sparkling clear which has me wondering if it's been pasteurised.Mmm. Not sure what to make of that. It's got quite a spicy character, with a background of toffee-like malt. Then there's a scrap of cirtus hanging around embarrassed in the background. According to the label, in contains oats as well as barley malt. Could I spot them? No. Then gain, I'm crap at that sort of thing. I find it strangely perfumy. Tastes like Christmas. Nothing wrong with it, but not really to my taste. Mister Sink will have to stay thirsty.

There you go. Another post from nothing other than the beer I'm currently drinking. Piece of piss.

Let's Brew Wednesday – 1957 Whitbread IPA

English IPA. There has been so much total and utter bollocks spoken about the style. Most definitions seem to be what Americans think English IPA should be like. Not based on something as dull as beers actually brewed in the UK.

It’s always good fun picking a style in BeerSmith. As this is an IPA brewed in England, I plumped for English IPA. 1050º to 1075º it tells me is the gravity range. Where the fuck did they get that from? I’m pretty certain that between 1820 and 1990 there wasn’t a single IPA breed in the UK with an OG over 1070º. The classic IPA gravity in the 19th century was 1065º. After WW I, Bass and Worthington excepted, there wasn’t an IPA with a gravity over 1055º. Just thought I’d make that clear.

In the 20th century, one of the commonest types of IPA was like Whitbread’s. A low-gravity, very pale, quite hoppy, bottled beer. Other London brewers had similar beers. Barclay Perkins, for example. It’s pretty much died out, though Harveys still make one.

It’s another painfully simple Whitbread recipe. Pale malt, crystal malt and invert sugar. Where could you go wrong with that? This is one of the very few beers where the colour calculated in BeerSmith pretty much matches the one in the brewing record. Meaning the colour wasn’t adjusted with caramel. Or with only a very little.

The hops were a mix of Mid Kent and East Kent, which I’ve interpreted as Fuggles and Goldings. It’s another beer with a relatively short boil. Which was pretty standard at Whitbread after WW II.

I can’t think of anything else to say. Other than, here’s the recipe:

1957 Whitbread IPA
PA malt	6.50 lb	83.87%
crystal malt 40L	0.50 lb	6.45%
no. 1 sugar	0.75 lb	9.68%
Fuggles 75 min	0.75 oz
Goldings 40 min	1.00 oz
Goldings 20 min	1.00 oz
OG	1035.8
FG	1006.5
ABV	3.88
Apparent attenuation	81.84%
IBU	36
SRM	6
Mash at	147º F
Sparge at	168º F
Boil time	75 minutes
pitching temp	64º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

Bottled beer in the 1950’s – Bright Bottled Beers (part seven)

As promised, we’ll be looking at carbonation. Though obviously, as a lifelong CAMRA member, I consider artificial carbonation to be the work of the devil.

You’ll note that the beer still hasn’t quite finished with its time in a tank. Once it was done with the warm tank, it went to the cold tank.

“On its way to the cold conditioning tank the beer is usually chilled by a counter-current chiller which reduces the temperature to 33-34º. This may consist either of a series of concentric pipes; through the inner one flows the beer and through the annular space between the inner and outer tube cooled brine is passed in the reverse direction; or of a machine similar in construction to an enclosed wort refrigerator. The beer passes on one side of the grooved plates and the cooled brine through the other. This plant, like its counterpart the wort refrigerator, gives very efficient heat transfer; it is easily adaptable for changed loads, as further plates can usually be fitted if an increased output is required; and it is easy to dismantle and clean. Alternatively in some installations the beer is blown without chilling into the cold tank, where it slowly attains the temperature of the cold room. In some breweries where it is desired to prime the bottled beers for sweetness only the practice is to put no priming in the conditioning tanks, but to inject it into the beer as it passes through the chiller into the cold storage.”
"Brewing Theory and Practice" by E. J. Jeffery, 1956, pages 338 - 339.

I’ve already explained a little about wort refrigerators. They were an important development in the late 19th century, allowing wort to be cooled much more quickly. Especially in summer, when during warm weather cooling in an open cooler could take many hours, during which time the wort was vulnerable to infection.

I guess leaving it to cool down in the tank used less energy, but took longer.

Now the exciting act of carbonation itself:

“It is at this stage that carbonation takes place. The carbonation may be effected as the beer passes from chiller to cold tank or by carbon dioxide top pressure in the cold tank. In this case assimilation of the gas is slow unless some form of rousing is installed. Finings, if used, would be added to cold tank before running in the beer. A rouser is sometimes installed to assist in mixing-in the finings, but usually the motion of the beer as it enters will give adequate mixing. Without rousing, absorption of carbon dioxide may take two or three days, whereas with efficient mixing it may be complete in about an hour. There is one system which uses the same tank for conditioning and cold storage (sometimes these periods are referred to as warm and cold conditioning respectively) and the tank has a propeller for rousing, so that absorption of the gas in the second (cold) stage is accelerated. When, as is more usual, separate cold tanks are used they are not generally fitted with mixing devices. ”
"Brewing Theory and Practice" by E. J. Jeffery, 1956, page 339.

It’s striking to me that at this point the beer still hasn’t been filtered and could be fined at the same time as it was being carbonated. Filtering only occurred later in the process. But we’ll be getting to that later.

I would have thought that swirling the beer about with a rouser would have knocked CO2 out of solution rather than help it be absorbed. But what do I know?

Carbonation has changed a little over the years. It does still sometimes take place as the beer is being chilled:

"This addition of carbon dioxide can occur whilst chilling beer through a plate heat exchanger  and so can take advantage of the turbulence of the beer in creating good conditions for gaseous exchange. A purpose-designed carbonation unit can also be used. This consists of a long pipe usually in the form of U-tube bends through which the beer flows. Carbon dioxide is injected as fine bubbles and the uptake, even in this form, can take a considerable time. The carbon dioxide must be the purest form available and no oxygen must be introduced. The injection unit must be easy to clean and must be cleaned regularly. Carbon dioxide can also be added `in-vessel' but this is frequently less efficient and more difficult to control. A `carbonation stone' is sometimes used to ensure production of fine bubbles of carbon dioxide to aid dissolution in the beer. This technique is sometimes described as `gas washing' and provides an opportunity for the removal of oxygen and unwanted flavour volatiles as well as carbonation. After `washing' the vessel must be sealed to allow pressure build-up and the dissolution of carbon dioxide. There are a number of problems associated with externally added carbon dioxide and it is good practice to avoid this technique as far as possible."
"Brewing Science and Practice" by Dennis E. Briggs, Chris A. Boulton, Peter A. Brookes and Roger Stevens, 2000, page 564.

But note that “externally added carbon dioxide”, i.e. CO2 added by top pressure in the tank, is no longer recommended.

Finally this is how much gas to add:

“Carbonation is usually effected so as to give a carbon dioxide contact after bottling of about two volumes of the gas per volume of beer or 0.4% by weight of carbon dioxide. To allow for inevitable losses during bottling it is advisable to carbonate to the extent of 0.5% by weight, which requires a pressure of 2.6 lb. per square inch at 33° F.; 3.3 lb. at 34º F. and 4 lb. at 35º F.”
"Brewing Theory and Practice" by E. J. Jeffery, 1956, page 339.

The pressure needs to be higher if the beer is warmer because CO2 is more soluble at lower temperatures.

Next it’s how to store your chilled beer.

Newark Ales in 1906

I'm returning briefly to my Newark-on-Trent theme. Why? Because I can and I feel like it.

Really it's just because I bumped my nose into a Warwick & Richardson's advert from 1906. Warwick & Richardson was one of the two big breweries in Newark still operating when my family moved to the town in the early 1960's. It was bought by John Smiths in 1962 and closed in 1966. After which their pubs were supplied with beer from the Barnsley Brewery. Most of the brewery still stands on North Gate. It's an attractive late Victorian job, so I'm glad they didn't just bulldoze it.

I remember the Cock Inn in Balderton going from Warwicks to Barnsley to Courage livery. Then changing its name to Chesters. Does at last sell cask now, which it didn't when I lived in Baldo. Still wonder what Warwicks beer tasted like. My dad must have drunk it, as I know my mother did (Milkmaid Stout). And she only usually drank in pubs. Other than Chrismas and weddings.

Here's the price list:

Lincolnshire Chronicle - Tuesday 25 December 1906, page 1.

As you can see, they had a range of 16 draught beers, which is pretty impressive.. Though my guess is that there were only really three or four parti-gyles. The bottled beers look like versions of the draught beers:

Trent Stout = P
Double Srout = SS
Extra Stout = DS
Mild Ale = XXX
Trent Ale = LBB
IPA = IPA

How does the range compare with that of breweries elsewhere? Let's take a look, shall we?

First, the Warwick's beers in table form:

Warwick & Richardson beers in 1906
Beer	Style	price per barrel (shillings)	price per gallon (pence)
X	Mild Ale	36	12
XX	Mild Ale	42	14
XXX	Mild Ale	48	16
XXXX	Mild Ale	54	18
LBB	Pale Ale	36	12
TA	Pale Ale	42	14
BB	Pale Ale	48	16
IPA	IPA	54	18
A	Strong Ale	60	20
B	Strong Ale	72	24
P	Porter	36	12
SS	Stout	42	14
DS	Stout	48	16
Sources:
Lincolnshire Chronicle - Tuesday 25 December 1906, page 1.

Now Whitbread's:

Whitbread beers in 1906
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	hops lb/brl
X	Mild	1055.1	1013.0	5.57	76.42%	1.23
FA	Pale Ale	1049.6	1013.0	4.84	73.78%	2.61
IPA	IPA	1050.1	1013.0	4.91	74.04%	2.63
2PA	Pale Ale	1056.5	1017.0	5.23	69.92%	2.37
PA	Pale Ale	1063.4	1022.0	5.47	65.29%	3.40
KK	Stock Ale	1075.1	1028.0	6.23	62.73%	4.06
2KKK	Stock Ale	1080.2	1033.0	6.24	58.83%	4.33
KKK	Stock Ale	1085.8	1032.0	7.11	62.69%	4.63
P	Porter	1055.2	1013.0	5.58	76.43%	1.55
CS	Stout	1057.9	1017.0	5.41	70.65%	1.38
S	Stout	1074.5	1026.0	6.41	65.08%	2.09
SS	Stout	1085.2	1032.0	7.03	62.43%	3.84
SSS	Stout	1095.1	1038.0	7.56	60.05%	4.29
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/071 and LMA/4453/D/09/100.

The biggest difference is in the Mild Ales. Whitbread brewed just one, while Warwick's had a more typical Victorian range of X to XXXX. Whitbread's X Ale, incidentally, sold for 36 shillings a barrel, just like Warwick's. But based on what I've seen at other provincial breweries, the gravity of Warwick's was probably lower.

Both breweries made four Pale Ales. But note the different position of IPA in the Pale Ale hierarchy. At Whitbread it was one of the weakest, at Warwick's the strongest.  As I've said often before, IPA wasn't necessarily stronger than Pale Ale. It varied, depending on the brewery. Ironically, Warwick's IPA ended up being their standard Bitter. I can recall filling the odd keg of it during my time at Holes, though by then only two pubs in Newark still sold it.

The surprising thing about the Black Beers, is that Warwicks still had a draught Porter. It was pretty moribund outside Ireland and London. As the maps here show. Based on the price, Warwick's top Stout was nowhere near as strong as SSS. DS was probably around 1070º

I can't think of owt of any sense about the Strong Ales. Keeping my gob shut as tight as Mum after all those rum punches in the former governor's mansion in Kingston.

I wish I had some real numbers for Warwicks beers. Before I started my crazy crawl through records, I never dreamt so much was out there. Maybe, somewhere, there is more information about their beers. I can still dream.

My favourite ever dream? Being on a Newark pub crawl in 1940. And not waking before I got to taste the Mild.

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

Don’t worry. Our slow crawl through the brew house will soon be over. Of course, that’s far from the end of our visit to Park Royal.

Nearly as important as the coppers themselves were the hop back, where the hops ended up after boiling.

“There are two hop backs each of 800 barrels capacity of more or less orthodox design in that they are circular vessels of about 26 ft. 6 in. in diameter and 9 ft. deep, constructed in copper bearing steel to resist corrosion and the usual gun-metal false bottom plates, the slots being 19 s.w.g. i.e. 0.040 in. The hop backs have copper domes with a chimney taken up through the roof for disposing of the vapour to outside the brew house. Disposal of the hop-back vapour in this way appreciably reduces the maintenance of the building steel work, etc. Perhaps an interesting feature is that the hop backs are fitted with revolving rakes for putting out the spent hops. A small dip of weak worts is put into the vessel, the rakes revolved to mix thoroughly the content, and then the hop outlet is opened to a centrifugal "free flow" pump which pumps the spent hops over to the by-products department for draining and drying. The same pumping system is used for returning hops to copper for alternate boilings. The hopped wort from the hop backs is pumped up to the wort coolers which are large open vessels about 26 ft. X 24 ft. and 6 ft. deep, constructed in copper bearing mild steel and located on the top floor of the brewhouse. They are open to the atmosphere.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing Volume 55, Issue 5, 1949, pages 282 - 283.

Some revealing stuff there. For a start, they hop sparged. That’s what the bit about “a small dip of weak worts”. That means they were adding a low-gravity wort to extract the wort retained by the hops. This was presumably higher gravity than the wort used to flush it out. More surprising was the fact that they returned hops to the copper, i.e. they were reusing spent hops. Very odd at this late date.

Note that they were still using open coolers, despite having refrigerators for cooling wort. Coolers (not fucking coolships) remained in use because, in addition to cooling wort, they were useful in removing all sorts of gunk from the wort. Being very shallow, sediment dropped out more quickly. As was usual, they were located at the top of the brewery, where the flow of air was best.

Not that coolers cooled the wort that, er, cool:

“The wort lies here where atmospheric cooling is allowed to lower the temperature to 176° F., which ensures that the temperature, when running down, does not fall below a safe figure. The wort is discharged into the wort coolers over aeration hoods.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing Volume 55, Issue 5, 1949, page 283.

Aeration hoods? Surely you wouldn’t want to aerate the wort at this point? Would you? I guess by wort coolers they mean refrigerators, whose form and function I described earlier.

Not sure what’s next. Something.