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A special treat for the upcoming St. Patrick's day. An experimental "Irish Stout type".

Barclay Perkins had the advantage of a very flexible brewhouse. Unlike Whitbread, they could brew small batches. Their New Brewery concentrated on small batch beers and experimental brews. It was there most of their many Stouts were brewed. Including IBS or Russian Stout. There were also test brews of new hops. These were usually of one of their mainstream beers - XLK or X - in a batch of just 30 barrels. Most was later mixed in with a full-size batch of the same beer.

The date of this brew is very significant: November 1921. Just when Ireland was gaining independence. When Guinness, until then the largest brewery in the United Kingdom, suddenly became foreign. Doubtless Barclay Perkins saw this as a chance to take some of Guinness's market.

Zythophile and I have argued in the past that what distinguished London Stout from Irish Stout was the use of brown malt. In Ireland, brewers quickly dropped brown malt after the invention of black patent malt in 1817. London brewers stuck with it to the bitter end. For Barclay Perkins, the distinction was different. As this beer demonstrates. It has a typical London grist, consisting of pale malt, brown malt, amber malt and roast barley. (Don't read too much into the latter ingredient. Barclay Perkins flipped randomly between black malt and roast barley all through the interwar years.)

In terms of ingredients, this beer is pretty much a clone of Barclay Perkins BS. The difference lies in the blending. Of which the log gives a detailed description. At racking time half the batch had old IBS Ex (the strong version of Russian Stout) added and half old BBS Ex (a strong export Stout). Clearly Barclay Perkins thought it was blending in aged beer that was the defining feature of Irish Stout.


That's me done, so over to Kristen with the technical details . . . . .