Scottish Export/80/- malts and adjuncts in the 1950s

Carrying on with my Eighty Shilling series, here's a look at the malts and adjuncts in the late 1950s.

There aren't a huge number of malts. It's mostly just pale malt. That's all that three of the five beers contain. The only other malts are tiny quantities of enzymic and black malts. The Bernard and Drybrough examples both have a tiny amount of black malt, presumably for colour correction. The Drybrough beer also has a little enzymic malt.

The average malt content is 70%, which is a little on the low side. The outlier being the William Younger beer, which has only 58% malt.

Moving onto the adjuncts, the 28% flaked maize in William Younger's beer explains why the malt content is so low. Every other example also includes flaked maize. No surprise there. Flaked maize was very common and appeared in a majority of UK beers at the time.

The Drybrough beer has a second adjunct: flaked barley. Which is interesting. During WW II, brewers were forced to use flaked barley as a replacement for flaked maize. But, as soon as maize became available again, brewers dropped flaked barley pretty much immediately

The average adjunct content is 15%. Though that's distorted by the William Younger beer. In the others around 10%.

Scottish Export/80/- malts and adjuncts in the 1950s
Year	Brewer	Beer	pale malt	black malt	enzymic malt	total malt	flaked maize	flaked barley	total adjuncts
1957	Robert Younger	80/-	72.17%			72.17%	13.88%		13.88%
1958	Wm Younger	Export	58.21%			58.21%	28.36%		28.36%
1958	Bernard	Pale 1/4	77.58%	0.61%		78.18%	9.70%		9.70%
1957	Maclay	Export	70.27%			70.27%	10.81%		10.81%
1956	Drybrough	Export	71.13%	0.58%	1.35%	73.06%	5.39%	5.39%	10.78%
	Average					70.38%			14.70%
Sources:
Robert Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number RY/6/1/2.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/3/112.
T & J Bernard brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TJB6/1/1/1.
Maclay brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number M/6/1/1/35.
Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/7.

 

 

Youngs adjuncts and sugars in 1940

There’s still just a single adjunct: flaked oats. Appearing in the Porter and Stout in small quantities. Though more than at many rival London breweries, such as Whitbread and Barclay Perkins, where it was often less than 1% of the grist.  I’m assuming the oats are an adjunct. The brewing records don’t indicate their form, simply calling them “oats”.

There’s one new type of sugar, “OM”, a proprietary sugar along the lines of CDM (Caramelised Dextro-Maltose). Used in in the Porter and Stout. 

Otherwise, everything is much the same as in 1939. Though the average percentage has decreased from 11.8% to 9.3%. Which is where the extra malt came from.

Malt extract is in most of the beers, except it’s been dropped from Porter and Stout. No. 1 invert is in the two Pale Ales. As you would expect. And No. 3 invert in all the dark beers.

Bit of a shock that there’s no caramel in the Black Beers. It does pop up in all the other dark beers, however. 

Youngs adjuncts and sugars in 1940
Beer	Style	flaked oat	malt extract	no. 1 sugar	no. 3 sugar	OM	caramel	total sugar
A	Mild		3.27%		4.35%		0.95%	8.57%
X	Mild		2.36%		4.72%		0.79%	7.87%
PAB	Pale Ale		2.82%	8.45%				11.27%
PA	Pale Ale		2.82%	8.45%				11.27%
P	Porter	5.00%			5.00%	5.00%		10.00%
S	Stout	5.00%			5.00%	5.00%		10.00%
XXX	Strong Ale		2.36%		4.72%		0.79%	7.87%
XXXX	Strong Ale		2.36%		4.72%		0.79%	7.87%
	Average							9.34%
Source:
Young's brewing record held at Battersea Library, document number YO/RE/1/9.

 

 

Youngs grists in 1960/1961

Time to move on to the ingredients. Starting with what went into the mash tun: malts and adjuncts.

Quite a few malts again. Five in total, mostly base malts. So let’s begin with those.

All of the Pale Ales use PA malt as their base. Which makes sense. PA malt being the highest quality pale malt, specifically designed for use in Pale Ales.

On the other hand, the Mild Ales and all the strong beers have mostly mild malt as their base. Though sometimes this was in conjunction with standard pale malt. Mild malt was generally of a slightly lower quality than standard pale malt and killed a little darker. It was also a little cheaper.

The same set of beers – minus Celebration Ale – are also the ones containing crystal malt. Around 9% of the total. Which is a reasonably large amount.

Only one malt appears in every beer: enzymic malt. Which, rather than containing lots of enzymes, was acidified and was used to lower the pH of the mash. It was extremely popular in the 1950s and 1960s, used by dozens of breweries.

All the beers contain between 75% and 80% malt. That’s slightly below the national average, which was 80%. With adjuncts at 5% and sugar at 15%. 

Moving onto the last column, you can see that the proportion of adjuncts is much higher than the national average, in most cases, running at around 14%. That’s almost treble the average. A shitlaod. And in every single beer. 

Youngs grists in 1960/1961
Year	Beer	Style	pale malt	PA malt	mild malt	crystal malt	enzymic malt	total malt	flaked maize
1961	X	Mild	20.45%		43.18%	9.09%	4.55%	77.27%	13.64%
1960	XS	Mild			63.59%	8.48%	4.24%	76.31%	14.13%
1960	PAB	Pale Ale		72.43%			5.10%	77.53%	14.28%
1960	PA	Pale Ale		72.43%			5.10%	77.53%	14.28%
1960	SPA	Pale Ale		76.74%			4.41%	81.15%	11.77%
1960	QSPA	Pale Ale		74.35%			5.13%	79.48%	12.82%
1961	Ex PA	Pale Ale		74.42%			4.65%	79.07%	9.30%
1961	MS	Stout	20.45%		43.18%	9.09%	4.55%	77.27%	13.64%
1961	XXX	Strong Ale	20.45%		43.18%	9.09%	4.55%	77.27%	13.64%
1960	XXXX	Strong Ale			64.13%	8.55%	4.28%	76.96%	14.25%
1961	CA	Barley Wine	22.67%		45.35%		5.23%	73.26%	17.44%
Source:
Young's brewing record held at Battersea Library, document number YO/RE/1/29.

 

Youngs adjuncts in 1990-1991

Now it’s time for the adjuncts that I mentioned earlier.  Four of them, in total. Though two of them only appear in one beer each.

The percentage of adjuncts in the grists is quite low, mostly around 5% to 7%.. Only being higher in the Oatmeal Stout.

The Porter and Oatmeal Stout both use roast barley, which is intriguing. As, historically, it wasn’t much employed in London. Where black and brown malt were preferred as the roasted elements of Black Beers.

Why was that? Why the change? My guess is that it’s on account of the gap in brewing Stout at Youngs.  In the 1970’s and some of the 1980s, Youngs brewed no Stout. And presumably came back to Stout brewing with a new perspective. Or maybe one of the brewers was a roast barley fan.

Flaked maize, which was usually UK brewers’ adjunct of choice, only appears in John Young’s London Lager (JYLL). But not in the stronger Premium Lager. The latter, as we’ve already seen, being brewed all malt.

Had I not spoken to former Youngs brewer John Hatch, I wouldn’t have realised torrefied barley was in most of the beers. As in the brewing record it’s just described as “flakes”. Which in most cases means flaked barley. Not here. Where it’s flaked torrefied barley.

It pops up in most of the top-fermenting beers, other than the Black Beers and Export Pale Ale. I assume that one of its roles is to aid head retention.

Finally, we come to flaked oats. Which, now here’s a shock, only appear in Oatmeal Stout. While 6% might not seem much, it’s way more than was used in earlier London Oatmeal Stours. Which had only about 1% oats. 

Youngs adjuncts in 1990-1991
Year	Beer	Style	roast barley	flaked maize	torrefied barley	flaked oat	total adjuncts
1990	JYLL	Lager		9.16%			9.16%
1991	Premium Lager	Pilsner					0.00%
1990	Light Ale	Pale Ale			7.18%		7.18%
1990	PA	Pale Ale			6.14%		6.14%
1990	SPA	Pale Ale			6.96%		6.96%
1990	Export	Pale Ale					0.00%
1990	Porter	Porter	2.61%				2.61%
1991	Oatmeal Stout	Stout	4.50%			6.00%	10.50%
1991	Winter Warmer	Strong Ale			4.43%		4.43%
1990	Old Nick	Barley Wine			4.88%		4.88%
Source:
Young's brewing record held at Battersea Library, document number YO/RE/1/59.

Listen to brewer John Hatch explain how they brewed at Youngs in the 1990s.  

Adnams adjuncts in 1913

All the beers except for X Ale contain an adjunct of some sort. In most cases, that’s flaked maize. In quite small quantities, 7% at most. Which is less than the 8.5% average for the whole country. 

Both Stouts contain oats. It’s not clear from the brewing records exactly what form those oats are in. I’m guessing that it’s probably flaked oats. Obviously, they’re there so that some could be marketed as Oatmeal Stout. Unlike at some breweries – I’m looking at you London – there’s more than a nominal amount. Maybe even enough to have an impact on the character of the beer. 

Adnams adjuncts in 1913
Beer	Style	oats	flaked maize	total adjuncts
X	Mild Ale			0.00%
XX	Mild Ale		6.53%	6.53%
BLB	Pale Ale		6.00%	6.00%
PA	Pale Ale		6.98%	6.98%
BS	Stout	5.31%		5.31%
DS	Stout	4.92%	2.46%	7.38%
Tally Ho	Old Ale		4.66%	4.66%
Source:
Adnams brewing record Book 1 held at the brewery.

 

Fullers X March 10th 1910 mashing scheme

Just one process left. And that’s mashing. In my spreadsheet of details extracted from brewing records I don’t include anything about mashing. Why? Because what breweries recorded varies enormously. And is difficult to summarise in a couple of columns.

Fullers were one of the better breweries when it came to noting down mashing details

It’s pretty much a classic underlet process. Where there’s an initial infusion mash at 149º F, followed by the addition of a smaller quantity of water introduced from below. This raised the temperature by 4º F.

At some point after the underlet “Saccharum Liquor”, that is a sugar solution, was added to the mash. This is rather odd, as sugar was usually added at the boiling stage.

The process was completed by a sparge at 168º F to 168º F.

A majority of English brewers used a method something like this. The ability to perform an underlet mash being the main reason for retaining internal rakes in the mash tun.

Fullers X March 10th 1910 mashing scheme
operation	barrels	strike heat	initial heat	mashed (mins)	stood (mins)	tap heat
mash	97	159º F	149º F	60	30
underlet	21	175º F	153º F			148º F
Saccharum Liquor	19
sparge	169	168º F
		165º F				152º F
Source:
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.

 

Fullers boiling and fermentation in 1910

Processes now. Starting with boiling and fermentation.

With the exception of X and BO, all the beers had two coppers.

Nothing very odd about the boiling process. Mostly, the boil length was in the range of 1.5 to 2 hours. Which was fairly typical. The only exception is BO, where the boil lasted 2.75 hours. Presumably some of that time was to concentrate the wort.

The fermentation temperatures are equally unexceptional, in the 60º F to 70º F range. I’m not finding much to say here, am I? 

Around a week for primary fermentation was pretty standard, too. Fullers used the dropping system of fermentation. I thought it would be interesting to include when the beers were dropped to the settling square.  There doesn’t seem to be much consistency to it, varying between 20 and 70 hours. 

Fullers boiling and fermentation in 1910
Beer	Style	boil time (hours)		Pitch temp	max. fermen-tation temp	length of fermen-tation (days)	dropped after (hours)
X	Mild	2		59º F	69º F	7	20
AK	Pale Ale	1.75	2	60º F	68.5º F	8	70
PA	Pale Ale	1.75	2	59.5º F	69º F	8	46
P	Porter	1.5	1.75	60º F	66.5º F	6
BS	Stout	1.5	1.75	59.5º F	69º F	6
BO	Strong Ale	2.75		60º F	70º F	9	60
	Average	1.88	1.88	59.7º F	68.7º F	7.3	49.0
Source:
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.

 

Fullers hops in 1910

All that’s left in terms of ingredients are the hops. Which are always fun. Where will they be from? Because just before WW I the UK was importing bucketloads of hops. From pretty much every country that grew them.

Sure enough, every beer contained some Oregon hops. Mostly not very fresh at three years old. Oddly enough only the two Black Beers got relatively fresh ones. Perhaps because their nasty flavour would be masked by all the roast.

Nothing very exotic about the other hops. Which were all English. Mostly from Kent. Which makes sense, as it was right on Fullers doorstep. Where specified, these were from a combination East Kent and Mid-Kent.

These hops were fresher than the Oregons, none being more than two years old. And quite a lot being from the most recent season.

Every beer received four types of hops, other than X. Which only had three. Multiple hop types was pretty standard at the time. 

Fullers hops in 1910
Beer	Style	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3	hop 4
X	Mild	Oregon 1907	MK 1909	EK 1908
AK	Pale Ale	Oregon 1907	English 1908	MK 1909	EK 1908
PA	Pale Ale	Oregon 1907	??? 1909	MK 1909	EK 1908
P	Porter	Oregon 1909	English 1908	EK 1908	EK 1909
BS	Stout	Oregon 1909	English 1908	EK 1908	EK 1909
BO	Strong Ale	Oregon 1907	English 1908	MK 1908	MK 1909
Source:
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.

 

Fullers sugars in 1910

Quite a few different sugars. Five in all. Considerably more than malts. Most of the sugars were some sort of invert.

Let’s start with the numbered inverts. No. 2 appears in both the Pale Ales and the Strong Ale. No. 1 or No. 2 are the sugars you would expect to see in Pale Ales, as they are relatively light in colour. The darker No. 3 was the obvious choice for Mild Ale. Especially at a time when the style was becoming darker.

The Special dark invert that turns up in the two Black Beers sounds like it might be something like No. 4 invert. That is, a very dark type of invert sugar. The quantity used in Porter and Stout is very large, almost a quarter of all the fermentable material.

I’ve no idea what trivert is. Other than suspecting that it’s some sort of invert. And that it was pale in colour.

I assume that the caramel was being used mostly for colour correction, as it appears in all Fullers beers, including the pale ones.

Overall, the sugar content is quite high, averaging over 18%. With Burton Old (BO) the only beer with less than 10%. While in the Black Beers it’s over 25%.

Fullers sugars in 1910
Beer	Style	no. 2 sugar	no. 3 sugar	Special dark invert	Pale Trivert	caramel	total sugar
X	Mild		8.75%		10.00%	0.65%	19.39%
AK	Pale Ale	5.25%			7.88%	0.20%	13.33%
PA	Pale Ale	8.94%			5.96%	0.16%	15.06%
P	Porter			24.06%		2.92%	26.98%
BS	Stout			24.06%		2.92%	26.98%
BO	Strong Ale	8.13%				0.41%	8.54%
	Average						18.38%
Source:
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.

 

 

 

Fullers grists in 1910

We’ll now take a look under the bonnet of these beers.

Most of the beers contained only a single malt: base pale malt. Which is pretty much what you’d expect for the period. A time when crystal malt was unknown in Pale Ales and by no means universal in Mild Ales.

Obviously, you can’t brew Porter or Stout without some sort of roast. Fullers went for the classic London combination of brown and black malt. The roast malts making up a hefty 16% of the total.

There’s quite a bit of variation in the malt content. From just under 70% in the Black Beers to 87% in the Strong Ale.

Every beer received a small dose of flaked maize. Nothing odd there. By this point, flaked maize was by far the most popular adjunct and flaked rice had been pretty much abandoned.

In the first decade of the 20th century, Oatmeal Stout was all the rage. Fullers must have joined in the craze. Hence the tiny quantity of oats. The brewing records don’t make clear what form they were in. Probably flaked. Adding a minute quantity of oats to a Stout parti-gyle to be able to legally market some of it as Oatmeal Stout was a typical trick of London brewers. 

Fullers grists in 1910
Beer	Style	pale malt	brown malt	black malt	total malt	flaked maize	oats	total adjuncts
X	Mild	74.05%			74.05%	6.56%		6.56%
AK	Pale Ale	80.76%			80.76%	5.91%		5.91%
PA	Pale Ale	81.59%			81.59%	3.35%		3.35%
P	Porter	53.38%	10.53%	5.26%	69.17%	3.01%	0.85%	3.85%
BS	Stout	53.38%	10.53%	5.26%	69.17%	3.01%	0.85%	3.85%
BO	Strong Ale	87.40%			87.40%	4.07%		4.07%
	Average				77.02%			4.60%
Source:
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.