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05-11-2021, 08:22
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No, I hadn't forgotten about my attempt to create a straitjacket for UK beer styles. As I'm breaking them down both by period and region, it's going to take me a while.I'm still on London Pale Ales, now moving down a class to what I suppose you would call Ordinary Bitter. With the quite strict pricing hierarchy of the interwar period, it's quite easy to break Pale Ales down into different categories. Today we're looking at the 7d per pint (on draught, in a public bar) category.
Sometimes 7d PA was the strongest Bitter in a brewer's portfolio. Whitbread didn't brew a beer in the 8d class, having only a single draught Bitter with a gravity of 1048ยบ.

For most brewers in the capital 7d Bitter was their second-best selling draught beer, after Mild Ale. Though it could be a long second. For example, in 1939 Whitbread brewed 50,740 barrels of 7d PA, but 232,453 barrels of X Ale.
If you're thinking that this just looks like a watered-down version of 8d PA you'd be correct. As the two classes were commonly parti-gyled together, that's exactly what it was. Colour adjustment with caramel, however, meant that 7d PA was mostly around the same shade as its stronger sibling.



Interwar London 7d PA (Ordinary Bitter)


OG
1044-1049


ABV
4-5%


Apparent attenuation
65-85%


IBU
30-40


SRM
6 - 10


grist


pale malt
75-85%


crystal malt
0-5%


flaked rice or maize
10-15%


sugar
5-20%


hops


Goldings



Fuggles



Farnham



Bramling Cross



Northern Brewer



Styrian Goldings



Cluster



Saaz



Hallertau



Spalt



Let me know when you get bored of this stuff. It's going to take forever for me to get through them all. Just covering Pale Ale will entail a couple of dozen definitions.



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