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Drybrough was also typically Scottish when it came to the ingredients they used. There was a very limited palette of malts.

There was little other than base malt. There was a small amount of enzymic malt and a minute amount to black malt for colour adjustment. Plus everyone’s favourite adjunct, flaked maize.

Though the malt situation was a little more complicated, as there were multiple types of pale malt. Typically for the pre-war period, the barley from which the malt was made came from all over the world. It would, however, have all been malted in the UK. While large quantities of barley were imported, no malt was.

This is the breakdown of the pale malts for the 60/- and 80/-. The other beers had the same types, but not in exactly the same proportions:

malt quarters %
Scotch 3 15%
Chilean 2 10%
Tunis 7 35%
Californian 8 40%
Total 20


Only 15% of the malt was made from UK-grown barley. All the rest had been imported. It’s not unusual for UK beers of the period to include large quantities of foreign barley, but this is quite an extreme example.


Drybrough's malts in 1936
Date Year OG pale malt black malt enzymic malt flaked maize
P 54/- Pale Ale 1031 75.51% 0.78% 1.64% 12.04%
Bottling Pale Ale 1033 69.20% 0.76% 1.82% 18.21%
P 60/- Pale Ale 1037 69.75% 0.31% 1.74% 17.44%
P 80/- Pale Ale 1050 69.75% 0.31% 1.74% 17.44%
Burns Strong Ale 1084 77.20% 1.51% 13.31%
Source:
Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/4.


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