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I bet that title surprised you. Except I'm not talking about today, but more than 100 years ago.

I've written before about the exchange of ideas, styles and techniques between the USA and Britain. It's a fascinating topic and one that has been much neglected. Ask yourself this, how was it that American breweries came to brew IPA? The name didn't exist at the time of independence. It's a sign that developments in brewing in Britain were still having an impact in the USA more than 50 years after it became a separate country.

By the end of the 19th century, the traffic was mostly the other way, with American brewers pioneering new techniques. One in particular was to have an enormous impact on British brewing: chilled and carbonated bottles beers. We'll be getting to that in a while. The article in the Journal of the Federated Institutes of Brewing I found when looking for stuff on bottling contains more. Much more. It's essentially a snapshot of American brewing techniques in the 1890's. And because we'e seeing it through the eyes of outsiders - a British brewer Horace Brown on a study trip - evrything gets explained. Including the stuff that would have seemed self-evident to an American brewer.

Brown seemed quite impressed by his American colleagues:

"The Americans are essentially a practical nation, and, as a rule, trouble themselves far too little about first principles, bat they make up for these deficiencies to some extent by their willingness to make experiments on a large scale, by the fearless manner in which they attack new problems, and by the entire absence of that extreme conservatism which generally characterises the pure empiricist in all the older countries.

In the mechanical arrangements of their breweries, and in the introduction of the best labour-saving machinery and appliances, the Americans are unquestionably far ahead of us, and the remarkably ready manner in which they can adapt their processes to the changing requirements of a community must strike all who have seen anything of their manufactories, a great contrast to the painful slowness with which any new idea is turned to practical account with us.
"Journal of the Federated Institutes of Brewing", Volume 3, Issue 6, November-December 1897, page 468.
A British brewer going to study developments abroad wouldn't have happened in the first half of the 19th century. Then the traffic was the other way around, with Continental brewers like Dreher and Sedlmayr visiting Britain to catch up with the latest advances. There seems to have been a big change towards the end of the century. British brewers became very conservative and set in their ways, where a few decades previously they had led the world. Though I suppose the same is true for many other industries.

Brown continues with a description of the types of beer brewed in the USA:

"Broadly speaking, there are two great classes of beer brewed in the United States, "lager" and "ale." The "ale," as with us, is the product of a top fermentation, and although it is almost unknown in the West, where lager has undivided sway, it still holds its own in the New England States, and far from being played out, as some would have us believe, will probably receive a stimulus from the improved methods of manufacture now coming in, which will enable it to enter into competition with lager, even in the West, that stronghold of the low fermentation beer."
Journal of the Federated Institutes of Brewing, Volume 3, Issue 6, November-December 1897, page 468.
Lager's domination of the West is what I would have expected, but it's nice to have it confirmed. Those "improved methods of manufacture" were mostly the adoption of Lager-brewing techniques.

Brown then goes into greater detail on the types of Ale brewed:

"Up to recently, the ale brewers produced only about three qualities of ale, one, which we should call a "running ale," but which is there known as "present use" or "lively ale;" a so-called "still ale;" and a "stock ale." By far the greatest amount of trade was, and in fact still is, done in the "present use" or "lively ale." This is of a gravity varying from 21 to 24 lbs. Long, and is brewed very much on the lines of an English running ale, but since they require in America an extremely high state of condition, it is racked at about one-third of the O.G., and is generally primed or "kräusened" heavily, and stored for about a week at 60º F. the krausening consists in adding up to 20 or 25 per cent, of fermenting wort, with the object of producing a very vigorous after-fermentation, which must be sufficient to develop a cask pressure of from 80 to 100 lbs. on the square inch. This pressure of from 5.5 to 6.5 atmospheres of course necessitates extremely strong casks, and is sufficient to force the beer from the basement cellar to the saloon bar, which may be several stories above, and to completely empty the cask without any artificial aid in the way of pumping or air pressure. Such beers, as may be well imagined, are seldom quite bright when treated in this way, but they carry an enormous "head," without which they appear to be quite unsaleable.

The so-called "still ales" are brewed very much on the same lines as the "lively ales," but are attenuated somewhat lower, and as they are not kräusened they only acquire an amount of condition about equal to the most lively beers of this country. The stock ales are of higher gravity, and are matured in the cask for from 9 to 12 months; they very much resemble some of our English stock ales."
"Journal of the Federated Institutes of Brewing", Volume 3, Issue 6, November-December 1897, pages 468 - 469.
"Present use" is a ternm that was also used in Britain, though it's more common early in the century. Basically, it was the equivalent of Mild Ale, though with a particularly American twist. 21 to 24 lbs. Long is 1058 - 1067. That's a little higher than English X Ales of the time, as you can see from the table below. They were in the range 1050 - 1058.

English X Ales 1894 - 1900
Date Year Brewer Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl Pitch temp
29th Jul 1897 Whitbread X 1058.2 1013.0 5.98 77.65% 8.20 2.04 60º
29th Jul 1897 Whitbread XK 1064.3 1016.0 6.38 75.10% 8.20 2.26 59º
24th Dec 1891 Barclay Perkins X 1058.0 1015.8 5.58 72.78% 5.93 1.45 61º
5th Jun 1900 Barclay Perkins X 1052.8 1010.0 5.67 81.11% 8.01 1.75 61º
23rd Jul 1897 Fullers X 1050.4 1013.9 4.84 72.53% 6.62 1.43 59º
7th Jul 1894 Truman X Ale 1056.5 9.0 2.19 60º
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/063.
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/1/587 and ACC/2305/1/593.
Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/175.


I'd noticed kräusening in the records of Amsdell, a brewer in Albany, New York. I'd wondered why they'd adopted such a typical Lager technique for the brewing of their Ales. This explains it: they wanted a huge amount of CO2 in the beer. I assume that this method was replaced by simple external CO2 pressure. Having that much pressure in casks sounds scary. I guess they must have pitched the inside to make them airtight. Otherwise the pressure would just leak out.

I just happen to have details of Amsdell's kräusening:

Amsdell kräusening details
date year gyle number beer barrels C removed kräusen added when kräusen added added at racking barrels racked when racked date year gyle number beer kräusen removed
1st Oct 1900 56 XX 167 46 11th Oct 7 204 12th Oct 11th Oct 1900 58 Winter Stock 46
9th Oct 1900 57 XX 169 27 49 12th Oct 7 196 13th Oct 12th Oct 1900 59 Scotch 49
11th Oct 1900 58 Winter Stock 260 46 0 0 235 3rd June
12th Oct 1900 59 Scotch 249 49 59 16th Oct 7 261 17th Oct 16th Oct 1900 61 XX 59
15th Oct 1900 60 XX 162 57 18th Oct 8 222 19th Oct 18th Oct 1900 62 Polar
16th Oct 1900 61 XX 209 59 49 19th Oct 8 191 20th Oct 19th Oct 1900 63 XX 49
18th Oct 1900 62 Polar 209 57 0 0 159 5th - 15th Nov
19th Oct 1900 63 XX 352 49 104 23nd Oct 8 403 25th Oct 23nd Oct 1900 65 XX 104
22nd Oct 1900 64 XX 191 0 62 25th Oct 8 178 26th Oct 25th Oct 1900 66 Winter XX 62
23nd Oct 1900 65 XX 356 104 70 26th Oct 7 330 27th Oct 26th Oct 1900 67 Scotch 70
25th Oct 1900 66 Winter XX 392 62 101 29th Oct 8 392 30th Oct 29th Oct 1900 68 XX 101
26th Oct 1900 67 Scotch 255 70 66 30th Oct 8 256 31st Oct 30th Oct 1900 69 XX 66
29th Oct 1900 68 XX 282 101 58 1st Nov 8 226 2nd Nov 1st Nov 1900 70 XX 58
30th Oct 1900 69 XX 368 66 97 2nd Nov 8 394 3rd Nov 2nd Nov 1900 71 Polar 97
1st Nov 1900 70 XX 389 58 103 5th Nov 8 399 6th Nov 5th Nov 1900 72 XX 103
2nd Nov 1900 71 Polar 305 97 0 0 189 19th - 27th Nov
5th Nov 1900 72 XX 265 103 60 8 233 9th Nov 1900 74 Winter XX 60
Source:
Amsdell brewing records.

And here are some of those figures re-arranged to show the percentage of kräusen added:

barrels kräusen removed kräusen added % kräusen
167 46 27.54%
169 27 49 28.99%
260 46 0 0.00%
249 49 59 23.69%
162 57 35.19%
209 59 49 23.44%
209 57 0 0.00%
352 49 104 29.55%
191 0 62 32.46%
356 104 70 19.66%
392 62 101 25.77%
255 70 66 25.88%
282 101 58 20.57%
368 66 97 26.36%
389 58 103 26.48%
305 97 0 0.00%
265 103 60 22.64%
Source:
Amsdell brewing records.

It's funny that the "Still Ales" had condition equal to the liveliest English Ales. That gives some ides of how fizzy the "Lively Ale" was. I suppose this was a reaction to the greater CO2 content of Lager. I'd love to know when Ale brewers started kräusening. Probably when Lager became popular.

It sounds as if the Stock Ales were the most similar to their English counterparts. 9 to 12 months in cask is pretty impressive. Though I know, for example, Ballantine, a famous Ale-brewer in Newark, New Jersey, were still bulk ageing beer long after the repeal of prohibition.

Next time we'll be looking and chilling and filtering beer.

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