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03-12-2012, 08:10
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Once I get started, it can be difficult to stop. That's my excuse for continuing with this series looking at X Ales in detail. Far too much detail, really.


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We're now in the 1880's, a key period in the development of British beer, when brewers had been unshackled by the 1880 Free Mash Tun Act. Suddenly a whole range of new ingredients were allowed. I'd been hoping/expecting to find maize and rice and other shit like that. I didn't. But more about that in the next part about the grists. Here I'm limiting myself to looking at the beer specifications.

This lot are quite tricky to make sense out of. With gravities all over the shop. Different examples of Barclay Perkins X ranged from 1055º to 1064º. Not sure what that was about. Truman seem to have brewed their X Ale to two slightly different strengths, 1053º and 1059º. The two in the table were parti-gyled together. It's very confusing. Possibly they could be London and Country versions. The "L" in Whitbread's XL almost certainly stands for London.

What is clear, is the disappearance of most of the stronger London X Ales. There are only a couple of XX Ales in the table. The stronger ones - XXX and XXXX Ale - had completely disappeared. The strongest London Mild is Barclay Perkins XX Ale at 1078º. If you can remember back that far, you'll recall that in my table for the 1860's there was a Mild over 1090º. In the 1830's table there were many Milds over 1100º. Stronger Milds continued to disappear right up until WW I, by which time London brewers generally only brewed X Ale.

It's intriguing that outside London breweries continued to brew a range of different-strength Milds. At the same time, it's worth noting that the third Mild up from Tetley and William Younger were only about the same level as The X Ales of Barclay Perkins and Whitbread.

I can't see any pattern in the rate of attenuation. Both the London and provincial examples mostly fall in the range 65% to 75%.

As the sample contains beers with very different gravities, the fairest way to compare hopping rates is to look at pounds per quarter of malt. Ignoring the outliers in each set (Barclay's XX and Tetley's X3), the London beers have between 6.5 and 9 pounds, the provincial ones 4.25 to 9 pounds. The averages are 7.61 for London and 6.44 for the provinces. I think it's fair enough to say that London X Ales were a little more heavily hopped than their provincial cousins.

I love looking at boil times. If only to demonstrate what bollocks all that shit is about Scottish brewers boiling their first runnings down to syrup. Note that the two Scottish brewers, William Younger and Thomas Usher, did not have the longest boils. In fact only Fullers boiled for a shorter time than Usher and the longest boils by far were at Truman's Burton brewery.

This is good. There's a clear pattern in the fermentation temperatures. London brewers pitch slightly cooler and let their worts get warmer. To make it easy, I've put the averages into a table:





Pitch
max


London
59.3º
71.4º


Provincial
60.6º
68.3º



Note that the two Scottish brewers are close to the provincial average in their fermentation temperatures. Disproving that other load of Scottish bollocks, the one about them fermenting at near lager temperatures. Not even close to being true.

Most of the fermentations, both London and provincial, took 7 or 8 days. Not much else I can say about that.

Next time we'll be looking at the grists of these beers.




London X Ales in the 1880's


Date
Year
Brewer
Beer
Style
OG
FG
ABV
App. Atten-uation
lbs hops/ qtr
hops lb/brl
boil time (hours)
boil time (hours)
boil time (hours)
boil time (hours)
Pitch temp
max. fermen-tation temp
length of fermen-tation (days)


4th May
1886
Barclay Perkins
X
Mild
1055.0
1010.0
5.96
81.87%
6.42
1.61
1.5
2


60º
72º
3 + 2


24th Jun
1886
Barclay Perkins
X
Mild
1064.0
1015.0
6.49
76.63%
8.00
1.97
2
2.5


60º
72º
3 + 3


3rd May
1887
Barclay Perkins
XX
Mild
1078.0
1024.9
7.02
68.04%
16.00
5.85
2



59º
70º
3 + 4


19th Oct
1886
Whitbread
X
Mild
1061.2
1015.8
6.01
74.21%
9.11
2.38

2


59º
º
8


12th Nov
1885
Whitbread
XL
Mild
1071.2
1020.8
6.67
70.82%
8.13
2.48
1.5
2


60º
º
7


19th May
1886
Truman
X Ale
Mild
1052.6



8.0
1.88
2
2
2.25
2.25
60.5º
º
8


19th May
1886
Truman
X Ale
Mild
1058.7



8.0
2.09
2
2
2.25
2.25
60.5º
º
8


23rd Apr
1887
Fuller
X
Mild
1054.6
1020.5
4.51
62.44%
6.64
1.63
1.5
1.75


58º
71º
12


23rd Apr
1887
Fuller
XX
Mild
1064.8
1023.3
5.50
64.10%
6.64
1.93
1.5
1.75


57º
72º
12


Sources:


Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/051 and LMA/4453/D/01/052.


Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/584.


Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number B/THB/C/166.



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Provincial X Ales in the 1880's


Date
Year
Brewer
Beer
Style
OG
FG
ABV
App. Atten-uation
lbs hops/ qtr
hops lb/brl
boil time (hours)
boil time (hours)
boil time (hours)
Pitch temp
max. fermen-tation temp
length of fermen-tation (days)


11th May
1888
Tetley
X
Mild
1046.0
1016.1
3.96
65.06%
4.31
0.69
2


65º
68º
8


11th May
1888
Tetley
X1
Mild
1053.7
1016.6
4.91
69.07%
5.31
1.02
2


63º
68º
8


14th May
1888
Tetley
X2
Mild
1063.2
1016.6
6.16
73.68%
8.40
2.02
3


65º
68º
9


13th Jun
1888
Tetley
X3
Mild
1071.2
1016.1
7.29
77.43%
12.00
3.57
3


63º
68º
8


22nd May
1885
William Younger
X
Mild
1048
1009
5.16
81.25%
5.29
0.99
2
2.5

60º
67º
6


24th May
1885
William Younger
XX
Mild
1056
1012
5.82
78.57%
6.19
1.53
2
2.5

60º
69º
7


1st June
1885
William Younger
XXX
Mild
1065
1021
5.82
67.69%
6.67
1.86
2
2.5

58º
67.5
6


9th Jan
1885
Thomas Usher
X
Mild
1050
1013
4.89
74.00%
9.00
2.00
1.5
2

58º
69.5º
6


18th Jan
1887
Truman (Burton)
A
Mild
1052.1
1012.2
5.28
76.60%
7.19
1.40
3
3
3
60º
68º
8


18th Jan
1887
Truman (Burton)
8
Mild
1054.0
1013.9
5.31
74.36%
7.19
1.45
3
3
3
60º
69º
8


8th Feb
1887
Truman (Burton)
7
Mild
1061.2
1016.6
5.90
72.85%
5.90
1.46
3
3
3
59º
68º
8


19th Jan
1887
Truman (Burton)
6
Mild
1066.5
1019.9
6.16
70.00%
6.64
1.95
3
3
3
57º
69º
8


8th Jan
1886
Hodgson
XX
Mild
1063.71



5.23
1.32



60º
69.5º



Sources:


Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds document number WYL756/44/ACC1903


William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive document number WY/6/1/2/31


Thomas Usher brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive document number TU/6/1/1.


Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number B/THB/BUR/11.


Hodgson brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/08/253.



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