Shut up about Barclay Perkins - Let's Brew - 1944 Drybrough 54/-
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I wonder why I publish some recipes. Other than for academic reasons, who would be interested in such a piss-weak beer as 54/-?.
But I soldier on. Feeling it my duty to relay the full horror of wartime brewing. Though it’s obviously a quiet afternoon on Mablethorpe beach compared to what was happening elsewhere. On a walk close to my work just now, I noticed memorials to Jews who were deported to concentration camps and murdered exactly around when this beer was being brewed. Watery beer wasn’t the worst that could happen in 1944.
The war has taken 54/- from being pretty weak to effectively a drink for the kiddies. (Not mine. They’re over 18 and demand adult-strength beer.) The writing was on the wall for 54/-.
Like some of the weaker English Milds, falls in gravity amongst its stronger siblings were going to drop it off the bottom of the brewable gravity ranges. Remember that 1027º was the lowest a beer could go and still make economic sense, due to the way the tax system worked. If one of the beers above you in the strength hierarchy dropped to around that level, you were fucked.
The recipe is typical, sorry, identical to Drybrough’s other beers of the time. For any comments about ingredients, etc., consult the 60/- recipe that I published a few days ago.
| 1944 Drybrough 54/- |
| pale malt |
5.00 lb |
80.32% |
| enzymic malt |
0.125 lb |
2.01% |
| chocolate malt |
0.04 lb |
0.64% |
| flaked barley |
0.50 lb |
8.03% |
| malt extract |
0.06 lb |
0.96% |
| No. 2 invert sugar |
0.50 lb |
8.03% |
| Fuggles 135 mins |
0.25 oz |
|
| Fuggles 90 mins |
0.25 oz |
|
| Goldings 30 mins |
0.25 oz |
|
| Goldings dry hops |
0.25 oz |
|
| OG |
1028 |
|
| FG |
1010 |
|
| ABV |
2.38 |
|
| Apparent attenuation |
64.29% |
|
| IBU |
11 |
|
| SRM |
6 |
|
| Mash at |
148º F |
|
| Sparge at |
165º F |
|
| Boil time |
145 minutes |
|
| pitching temp |
60º F |
|
| Yeast |
WLP028 Edinburgh Ale |
|
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