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Guinness. Love them or leave them, you sometimes hate them. My own relationship with Guinness is equivocal. Just to prove that, I'm drinking one* right now.

Stout. What did the word originally mean, in a beer sense? Strong. Brown Stout is the name Stout began with, back in the 18th century. It had a brother, Pale Stout. Stout = strong, pale or brown = base malt.

Many things annoy me. My evenings are spent screaming at the TV, while Dolores covers her ears and the kids hide cower behind the settee. Pretty much top, beer-wise, is the assertion that you can't have an IPA under 4% ABV. Because IPA "was a strong beer" in the 19th century.

I've just two problems with that argument. First, IPA wasn't a strong beer in the 19th century. It was about standard strength. I've plenty of examples of a base-level X-Ale Mild that were stronger than Bass IPA (or whatever they called it, I think it was often just Pale Ale) in a given year.

Second problem: assuming beer styles are flies trapped in amber, unchanging. British beer styles have been exceedingly dynamic, in terms of strength, ingredients and even colour. Judging a modern British beer by the style guidelines of 1850 is ludicrous. Surely everyone can see that? Well, no they can't. Otherwise there wouldn't be the repeated, tedious complaint that Greene King commits fraud with their IPA.

I'm going to move this over the Irish Channel. And look at Guinness, applying the same logic that condemns Greene King IPA. Does Guinness match up to its 19th-century ancestors? How strong was Guinness Extra Stout in, say 1870? Or 1880? Or 1914?

Let's take a look at one of my traditional tables (I've deliberately thrown in some FES examples as a benchmark):


Guinness Stout 1870 – 1914
Year Brewer Beer Acidity FG OG colour ABV App. Attenuation
1870 Guinness Extra Stout 0.24 1015.51 1078.06 8.20 80.13%
1870 Guinness Stout 0.24 1015.51 1078.06 8.51 80.13%
1870 Guinness Stout 0.20 1019.56 1078.01 7.75 74.93%
1888 Guinness Stout 0.52 1018.1 1072 7.03 74.86%
1896 Guinness Extra Stout 1017.55 1072.26 7.05 74.43%
1901 Guinness Foreign Extra Stout 1013.302 1075.67 8.18 82.42%
1901 Guinness Extra Foreign Stout 0.243 1013.20 1074.98 7.86 81.34%
1914 Guinness Extra Stout 1074
Sources:
British Medical Journal June 25th 1870, page 658 http://books.google.nl/books?id=TH1A...ors%22&f=false
"Chemie der menschlichen Nahrungs- und Genussmittel" by Joseph König, 1889, page 839
Wahl & Henius, pages 823-830


Based on that, an Irish Stout should be 7-8% ABV


Guinness Stout 1964 – 1966
Year Brewer Beer Acidity FG OG colour ABV App. Attenuation
1964 Guinness Foreign Extra Stout 0.07 1015 1072.8 200 7.56 79.40%
1964 Guinness Extra Stout 0.04 1007.5 1043.1 225 4.64 82.60%
1964 Guinness Extra Stout 0.06 1007.9 1044.9 150 4.82 82.41%
1964 Guinness Extra Stout 0.06 1007.9 1044.8 175 4.81 82.37%
1964 Guinness Extra Stout 0.06 1007.8 1044.8 175 4.82 82.59%
1966 Guinness Extra Stout 0.05 1007 1043 160 4.69 83.72%
1966 Guinness Extra Stout 0.04 1006.9 1043.5 170 4.77 84.14%
1966 Guinness Extra Stout 0.04 1007.4 1043 190 4.64 82.79%
1966 Guinness Extra Stout 0.04 1007.3 1043.6 170 4.73 83.26%
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002


Look at that. Modern Guinness Extra Stout is barely half the strength that it was 100 years ago. How can you call that a Stout? Fraud, I call it.




* Guinness Special Export


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