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Reid was one of the largest Porter breweries in the 19th century. Never the largest, but sometimes second behind Truman or Barclay Perkins. In the early 19th century, they were briefly the largest in 1907 and 1808, but their production remained fairly stable while others expanded.


Here’s how the London Porter brewers ranked in the 1830’s:

Largest London Porter breweries 1830 - 1839
Brewery 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839
Barclay Perkins 262,306 330,528 343,328 315,784 343,569 382,063 378,109 354,360 375,466 405,819
Whitbread 144,104 191,040 209,672 187,070 184,100 186,206 190,005 180,512 179,975 183,468
Truman 167,542 199,486 234,665 226,924 254,650 280,075 329,333 303,590 310,193 320,675
Reid 127,220 154,631 165,515 150,865 169,246 181,187 194,656 162,840 178,919 171,650
Sources:
Whitbread brewing log held at the London Metroploitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/023.
“The British Brewing Industry 1830-1980”. T R Gourvish & R G Wilson, 1994, pages 610-612


This is a pretty typical Porter of the time. With the familiar combination of pale, brown and black malts. All pretty locally sourced. The pale was from Sussex, the brown from Hertfordshire. The hops were all pretty local, too: Mid Kents from the 1835 and 1836 crop.

As a third of the hops were over two years old, I’ve knocked the total hops down from 4.62 ozs. to 3.75 ozs. It still leaves a calculated 44 IBUs.

The mashing scheme was quite complicated: three mashes and no sparge. There was a fourth mash for a return wort.

action water (barrels) water temp. tap temp. time
mash 207 162º F 145º F 90
mash 150 180º F 164º F 50
mash 179 151º F 153º F 40

This was a beer that wasn’t vatted and would have been drunk young. Or perhaps blended with Keeping porter at racking time. As with all Porter and Stout, the fermentation was quite hot, hitting a maximum temperature of 78.5º F.


1837 Reid P
pale malt 11.75 lb 79.66%
brown malt 2.25 lb 15.25%
black malt 0.75 lb 5.08%
Goldings 90 mins 1.25 oz
Goldings 60 mins 1.25 oz
Goldings 30 mins 1.25 oz
OG 1061.2
FG 1018
ABV 5.72
Apparent attenuation 70.59%
IBU 44
SRM 30
Mash at 150º F
Sparge at 165º F
Boil time 75 minutes
pitching temp 66º F
Yeast Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale


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