Friday 9 December 2016

Scottish vs London Porter and Stout grists 1909 – 1913

Tables. Everyone loves them. If you don’t why the hell are you reading this? You’re well aware that I’ve been Table Man of the Year for seven consecutive years.

It’s not just any old table I’ve got for you. I’s a wildly impractical one, with way too many columns. But that it itself tells a story. One about the wide range of ingredients used by breweries in their Black Beers. Because the three London and three Scottish breweries managed to use 12 malts or adjuncts between them. And that’s ignoring all the different sugars they used. I’ve left those out because they just make things too damn confusing.

The 25 beers listed don’t have a single ingredient in common. Not even pale malt, because one of the Barclay Perkins examples used SA malt as base. After pale malt, the second most common ingredient is black malt, found in all but the Thomas Usher Stouts. Next is brown malt, present in more than half of the examples.

I was quite surprised to see that three of the breweries - two London, one Scottish – were still using amber malt. The fad for Oatmeal Stout is reflected in all the London and one of the Scottish breweries using it in some of their beers. Though there’s a huge difference in the quantities employed.  For Maclay, it made up around 30% of the grist, while none of the London brewers used more than 3%.

You may have heard the old wives’ tale about roast barley being used in Stout and black malt in Porter and that that’s what differentiates the two styles. Only one of the breweries used any. And, just to muddy things, not only used it in both Porter and Stout, but also used it in combination with black malt. Hadn’t the Truman brewers read the BJCP guidelines? Using two roasts like that is very unusual. Mostly brewers used one or the other.

There’s surprisingly little crystal malt used. Yes, three brewers used some, but only Usher put it in all their Stouts. Chocolate malt only appears in beers from two of the Scottish breweries. Though I must point out that Whitbread moved from black to chocolate malt a little later, in 1922.

Interestingly, every beer contains at least two dark malts. Though I know that some English breweries had used a simplified grist of just pale and black malt since the middle of the 19th century.

There weren’t a huge amount of unmalted grains employed, other than by Truman and, of course, William Younger. The latter using a ridiculous proportion of grits.

Every beer contained sugar, averaging around 13%. Though the percentage ranges from 6% to almost 20%. There’s no correlation between how expensive the beer was and the size of the sugar content. Whitbread’s two cheapest beers, Porter and London Stout, contained the lowest percentage. In total, twelve different types of sugar were used by the six breweries.

As I said at the beginning, a very diverse bunch of ingredients.


Scottish vs London Porter and Stout grists 1909 - 1913
Year Brewer Beer Style OG pale malt brown malt black malt amber malt choc. Malt crystal malt SA malt oats flaked maize grits roast barley malted oats sugar
1912 Whitbread P Porter 1054.3 68.99% 12.66% 9.81% 0.32% 8.23%
1912 Whitbread LS Stout 1055.3 68.99% 12.66% 9.81% 0.32% 8.23%
1912 Whitbread Exp S Stout 1068.4 49.18% 9.84% 7.38% 17.21% 16.39%
1912 Whitbread SS Stout 1079.9 49.22% 12.18% 10.62% 16.06% 11.92%
1912 Whitbread SSS Stout 1095.8 49.22% 12.18% 10.62% 16.06% 11.92%
1910 Barclay Perkins OMS Stout 1053.2 21.27% 12.61% 10.93% 10.93% 21.27% 3.36% 19.62%
1910 Barclay Perkins BS Ex Stout 1076.0 8.67% 8.67% 12.41% 53.36% 2.67% 14.23%
1910 Barclay Perkins EIP Ex Porter 1063.5 56.04% 12.30% 8.88% 5.47% 2.73% 14.58%
1911 Barclay Perkins RDP Porter 1068.2 47.39% 8.65% 7.83% 11.13% 7.42% 17.58%
1909 Truman Imperial Stout Stout 1094.2 76.76% 2.93% 4.10% 2.93% 13.28%
1909 Truman SS Stout 1072.0 76.76% 2.93% 4.10% 2.93% 13.28%
1909 Truman Runner L & C Porter 1054.3 68.66% 4.61% 7.37% 4.61% 14.75%
1909 Truman Country Runner Porter 1058.2 67.82% 5.59% 2.39% 5.59% 2.39% 2.39% 1.60% 12.23%
1909 Truman Bottling Porter 1052.6 67.82% 5.59% 2.39% 5.59% 2.39% 2.39% 1.60% 12.23%
1909 Truman Export Stout Stout 1069.3 69.90% 8.74% 8.74% 12.62%
1909 Truman Runner Porter 1058.2 65.87% 6.35% 6.35% 6.35% 1.59% 2.38% 11.11%
1909 Truman Keeping Stout Stout 1069.3 69.90% 8.74% 8.74% 12.62%
1912 Thomas Usher 48/- Stout 1046 66.39% 4.92% 6.15% 6.15% 16.39%
1912 Thomas Usher 54/- Stout 1054 66.39% 4.92% 6.15% 6.15% 16.39%
1912 Thomas Usher Stt Stout 1070 66.39% 4.92% 6.15% 6.15% 16.39%
1909 Maclay OMS 63/- Stout 1062 47.62% 9.52% 3.17% 28.57% 11.11%
1909 Maclay DBS 54/- Stout 1044 50.28% 10.06% 3.35% 30.17% 6.15%
1913 Wm. Younger S2 Stout 1059 42.86% 6.59% 6.59% 32.97% 10.99%
1913 Wm. Younger DBS Stout 1065 42.42% 6.06% 6.06% 33.33% 12.12%
1913 Wm. Younger MBS Stout 1065 49.09% 5.45% 5.45% 32.73% 7.27%
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/602
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/106
Truman  brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/112
Thomas Usher brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TU/6/1/5.
Maclay brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number M/6/1/1/2.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/58.

2 comments:

InSearchOfKnowledge said...

Any idea of the properties of amber and SA malt (yet) in those years? I see that there is much speculation, confusion and lack of data in the diverse comments and topics about these on your blog.

Ron Pattinson said...

InSearchOfKnowledge,

you can find something about SA malt here:

http://edsbeer.blogspot.nl/2016/02/sa-malt.html?showComment=1454685738184#c2811318923128802828