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Yet another Truman beer from WW II. Bit of a giveaway to what I'm working on at the moment.

Happy days if you were lucky enough to find Truman’s Best Burton Bitter. However unlikely that might be.

This batch was just 70 barrels. Sort of. 211 barrels were fermented, but 141 barrels were blended with an understrength P2 wort to get that up to strength. Truman did some weird shit. As they were parti-gyling P1 and P2 anyway, I don’t know why they didn’t just blend the worts up to the strengths they wanted pre-fermentation.

Like all Truman’s other beers, there’s been a big drop in the rate of hopping. Leaving a Pale Ale which, despite its Burton origin, punches like a sickly three-year old when it comes to bitterness. On the other hand, it wasn’t far short of 6% ABV. I think I’d forgive the lack of hops in return for a decent intoxication potential.

Most other brewers dropped their top-level draught Pale Ales during the war. Truman persisted. Perhaps because that’s what their Burton brewery was really for. Producing top-class Pale Ales.

The hops, as in all the other beers were two types of cold-stored English hops from the 1939 crop.


1941 Truman P1
pale malt 9.50 lb 79.76%
high dried malt 1.75 lb 14.69%
malt extract 0.33 lb 2.77%
No. 1 invert sugar 0.33 lb 2.77%
Fuggles 105 mins 0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins 0.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins 0.25 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.50 oz
OG 1051.5
FG 1007
ABV 5.89
Apparent attenuation 86.41%
IBU 15
SRM 6
Mash at 148º F
Sparge at 160º F
Boil time 105 minutes
pitching temp 59.5º F
Yeast Wyeast 1028 London Ale (Worthington White Shield)


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