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17-09-2011, 08:18
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Time for a look at Scottish beer in more detail. Lots more detail. More detail than you can cope with, possibly. But isn't that what this blog is all about?


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I'm kicking off with Pale Ales in the first half of the 1920's. Why? No particular reason. I have to start somewhere. And I've loads of Pale Ale analyses. It will take several posts to get through the interwar years.

Scotland was a strange place, beer-wise. Quite different from England. Not so much in the beers themselves as the names under which they were sold. Rather than Bitter and Best Bitter, in Scotland they used shillings to differentiate between Pale Ales of different strengths. With 60/- being ordinary Bitter, 70/- Best Bitter and 80/- Strong Bitter. All very logical. Except when you get to 90/-. Logic would dictate that this would be stronger than 80/-. It wasn't. For some reason 90/- was used for bottled Pale Ales around the strength of draught 60/-. Make any sense to you? It doesn't to me.

The analyses below all come from brewery sources. Pretty much every beer was specifically called Pale Ale (or PA) in the original documents. Not Light, Heavy or Export. Because, despite what later style fetishists might claim, Scottish brewers themselves considered all these beers Pale Ales. Light, Heavy and Export were the names used by drinkers. Much in the same way English beers were called Pale Ale in the brewery and Bitter in the pub.

I'm not surprised the shilling designations have caused so much confusion. Because they don't really pin down a style of beer. Before WW II, 60/- was the equivalent of ordinary Bitter. The sixty bobs I can recall from the 1970's were all Dark Milds. I'll repeat this once again: all the shillings tell you is the relative strength of the beer. Not which style it's in. If you forget this, Scottish beers won't make the slightest sense.

Most of the beers in the table are 60/- PAs. Though not all were clearly identified as that. Their average OG is 1039.4, average FG 1009.6, average ABV 3.8%, average apparent attenuation 75.6%. Retailing for 7d a pint. The William Younger beers from 1921, though not all are identified as such, in the source, are 60/-, 70/- and 80/- PA. Retailing for, respectively, 7d, 8d and 9d per pint. 70/- having a gravity around 1046 and 80/- 1052. This is very similar to the beers brewed in London, where Pale Ales over 1050 cost 9d a pint and ones in the mid 1040's were 8d a pint.

How, in a time when beer strengths weren't public knowledge, bit brewers manage to keep their beers of such similar strength? The answer lies in the sources of this information: various breweries' Gravity Books. Brewers kept a close eye on what their competitors were up to. Gravities naturally tended to align with each other.

A final point: colour. That's where there is a difference with English Pale Ales were in the range 20 to 28. I've a log of Whitbread PA where the colour is 34 and there's a note saying "Too high". Most of the Scottish examples are darker, in the 30's or 40's. Or the colour of an amber Mild like Barclay Perkins'. Two of McEwan's Pale Ales from 1924, presumably 60/- PA, seem to confirm the Scottish practice of colouring a beer differently for different markets. Their gravities are about the same, but one has a colour of 35, the other 52. It's unlikely that this could be explained by them coming from different batches or by accident. The difference is too great.

Here's the luvverly table:




Scottish Pale Ale 1920 - 1924


Year
Brewer
Beer
Style
Price
size
package
FG
OG
colour
ABV
App. Atten-uation


1920
Usher
PA 54/-
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1010.5
1034

3.04
69.12%


1920
Usher
PA 60/-
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1012.9
1040

3.51
67.75%


1920
Usher
PA 90/-
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1016
1054

4.93
70.37%


1921
Bernard
PA 60/-
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1011
1039.2

3.65
71.94%


1921
McEwan
PA 60/-
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1007.1
1040.2

4.31
82.34%


1921
Younger, Wm. & Co
PA
Pale Ale
9d
pint
draught
1013.1
1053.2

5.21
75.38%


1921
Younger, Wm. & Co
PA
Pale Ale
8d
pint
draught
1012
1046

4.41
73.91%


1921
Younger, Wm. & Co
PA 60/-
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1011.2
1039.5

3.67
71.65%


1922
Aitken
PA
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1009.2
1036.2

3.50
74.59%


1922
Ballingall
PA 60/-
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1012.8
1040

3.52
68.00%


1922
Bernard
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
7d
pint
draught
1009.6
1039.2
40
3.84
75.49%


1922
Bernard
Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1005.4
1042.5
27
4.85
87.31%


1922
Deucher, James Ltd
Lochside Beer
Pale Ale
7d
pint
draught
1011
1039.5

3.69
72.15%


1922
Hamilton
PA
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1010.2
1036

3.34
71.67%


1922
McEwan
Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1007.6
1039.8
30
4.18
80.83%


1922
McEwan
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
7d
pint
draught
1010
1038.7
35
3.72
74.16%


1922
McEwan
PA
Pale Ale
7d
pint
draught
1007
1039

4.16
82.05%


1922
Murray
PA
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1005
1037

4.17
86.49%


1922
Steel Coulson
PA
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1012
1040

3.63
70.00%


1923
Bernard
Carbonated Beer
Pale Ale
4d
half pint
bottled
1012.4
1037.6
45
3.26
67.02%


1923
Bernard
PA
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1005
1039

4.43
87.18%


1923
McEwan
Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1007
1040

4.29
82.50%


1923
Murray
Carbonated Beer
Pale Ale
4d
half pint
bottled
1011.8
1035.2
27
3.03
66.48%


1923
Tennent
Beer
Pale Ale

pint
draught
1006
1038
45
4.17
84.21%


1923
Tennent
Carbonated Beer
Pale Ale
4d
half pint
bottled
1007
1038
44
4.03
81.58%


1923
Tennent
Carbonated Beer
Pale Ale
4d
half pint
bottled
1005.5
1039.6
45
4.44
86.04%


1923
Tennent
PA 90/-
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1006
1039

4.30
84.62%


1923
Younger, Geo.
carbonated
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1007.3
1033.8
33
3.44
78.47%


1923
Younger, Geo.
No. 1 Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1008.2
1014.9
31
0.87
45.27%


1924
Bernard
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
4d
half pint
bottled
1013.2
1040.2
35
3.49
67.16%


1924
Bernard
60/-
Pale Ale

pint

1014
1040
42
3.36
65.00%


1924
Gordon & Blair Ltd
Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
draught

1038.1





1924
J. Deuchar
Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1005.3
1038.9
35
4.37
86.29%


1924
McEwan
Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1008.6
1039.5
35
4.01
78.23%


1924
McEwan
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
6d
pint

1009.4
1038.7
52
3.80
75.71%


1924
McEwan
Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
draught

1041.6





1924
Murray
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
4d
half pint
bottled
1011.1
1036.3
25
3.26
69.42%


1924
Murray
Pale Ale
Pale Ale

pint
draught

1037.2





1924
Murray
Strong PA
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1013
1057

5.73
77.19%


1924
Tennent
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
4d
half pint
bottled
1009.8
1037.3
48
3.57
73.73%


1924
Younger, Geo.
Alloa Pale Ale
Pale Ale


bottled

1039.7





1924
Younger, Wm. & Co
Sparkling Ale 90/-
Pale Ale

pint
bottled
1010.5
1041.5
30
4.02
74.70%


Sources:


Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive


Whitbread Gravity Book document LMA/4453/D/02/001 held at the London Metropolitan Archives


Younger, Wm. & Co Gravity Book document WY/6/1/1/19 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive


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