Shut up about Barclay Perkins - let's Brew Wednesday - 1901 Boddington's IPA
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Welcome back Kristen. I’d been sitting on this for a while. I can’t remember why. Maybe it will come back to me.
IPA was Boddington’s top-range Pale Ale. And the direct ancestor of post-WW II Boddington’s Bitter. Though it did undergo a few changes over the years. Such as quite a big drop in gravity.
In 1901, Boddington only brewed two Pale Ales, this beer and an AK. The latter had a classic gravity for the style of 1046º. Their range was completed by four Mild Ales, X, XX, XXX and XXXX, one Strong Ale and a Single and Double Stout. Which is a pretty classic late-19th-century set.
The grist is very simple: just pale malt and invert sugar. The malt being a mix of English and Californian. The invert, well, it could be any type. Though No. 1 is probably the best guess for a beer of this type.
With 10 lbs. of hops per quarter of malt, this was easily their most heavily-hopped beer. The Milds were hopped at about 5.5 lbs. per quarter of malt, the Strong Ale and AK at 8 lbs. per quarter.
There’s not really much else to say about this beer. It’s very straightforward, which is typical of the period. I’m slightly surprised that there’s no flaked maize. Most brewers at the time used 10-15% in their grists.
Time to pass you over to Kristen . . .
Kristen’s Version:
Notes: Really neat eye opener for this one laddies. Such a pale beer well back at the turn of the 20th. Solidly hopped, a bit rounder on the end than ones we’d see today but all and all something that would fit into pretty much any beer bar in the world these days.
Malt: Two pale malts. A bit grainy from the US malt but nonetheless, pick two nice ones. Or a solid one….even if its just all American, Belgian, whatever. Just not pils. For the invert, there is so little in this, and its pale, just swap white sugar for it, you won’t tell the difference.
Hops: I would mention the 5 different hops they used in this beer except they did the same for every beer they seemed to produce. A blend of the same hops, where there doesn’t seem to be rhyme or reason as to how they are broken down. Just split up for whatever reason. That said, you can really use anything for this. Anything at all as it will sing with the malt. There was no indication of any sort of dry hopping but to me, I think you have to. At least 0.5lb/bbl (4g/L) minimum…frankly, this is the type of beer that could take a giant thumping in the hop back but, then it wouldn’t be this recipe, which is what we are talking about.
Yeast: Pick something that doesn’t attenuation so well and I’d under pitch a touch to to keep her a bit more round on the end. London III really would go swimmingly with this beer. Stay away from anything really minerally I’d say…or weird.
Cask: Standard procedure:
1) let the beer ferment until finished and then give it another day or so. For me right around 5-7 days.
2) Rack the beer to your vessel of choice (firkin, polypin, cornie, whatever).
3) Add primings at ~3.5g/L
4) Add prepared isinglass at 1ml/L
5) ONLY add dry hops at 0.25g/l – 1g/L.
6) Bung it up and roll it around to mix. Condition at 55F or so for 4-5 days and its ready to go. Spile/vent. Tap. Settle. Serve at 55F.
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