Visit the Shut up about Barclay Perkins site

Pick up an idea like a stray rugby ball and run with. That’s what I tend to do. And keep running even though I’ve run past the opposition try line and out of the ground. (Not what I dd with stray rugby balls in real life. Should the ball ever fall into my hands I’d immediately kick it away, before anyone could jump on me.)
A long-winded way of saying: I’m nowhere near finished with Boddington Bitter. In my chronology-busting fashion, I’m moving ever further into the past. This time jumping back past one of UK beer’s big extinction events, WW I.

Considering how cataclysmic an event that was, the 1913 version is disappointingly similar to that of 1922. The gravity is only 4º higher, making the fall across the war a mere 7.5%. About a third of the average gravity drop.

Other than the lack of flaked maize in 1913, the recipes are very similar. Consisting of just pale malt and an unspecified type of sugar. I’ve guessed No. 2 invert for the latter. The pale malt was half from UK barley and half from “foreign”.

The hopping rate is identical to 1922. Then why are the quantities in this recipe? Because of the age of the hops. Around a third were from the 1909 harvest, 17% from the most recent crop of 1912 and the remainder from 1911. Five of the six types of hops were English and one Californian.


1913 Boddington IP
pale malt 10.50 lb 91.30%
No. 2 invert sugar 1.00 lb 8.70%
Cluster 150 mins 0.50 oz
Fuggles 150 mins 0.25 oz
Fuggles 90 mins 0.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins 0.75 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.67 oz
OG 1052
FG 1015
ABV 4.89
Apparent attenuation 71.15%
IBU 32
SRM 7
Mash at 154º F
Sparge at 168º F
Boil time 150 minutes
pitching temp 62º F
Yeast Wyeast 1318 London ale III (Boddingtons)


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