Visit the Shut up about Barclay Perkins site

In the 1970s, draught Stout meant one thing: Guinness. In most of the UK, draught Stout died out between the wars. The exceptions were Northern Ireland and London. In the capital, it managed to hang on until sometime in the 1950s.

A large percentage of brewers were still producing a Stout at the start of the 1970s. Mostly, these were pretty low gravity, sometimes as low as 1030º. Coupled with a low degree of attenuation, it left these beers with less than 3% ABV.

Let’s take a look at some of the Stouts being brewed at the time.

UK Stout 1969 - 1973
Year Brewer Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl colour
1969 Fremlin Special Stout 1039.2 1016.7 2.98 57.40% 4.11 0.65
1970 Adnams Double Stout 1037.0 1009.0 3.70 75.68% 5.54 0.86
1973 Whitbread Mackeson 1038.8 1010.0 3.81 74.23% 6.31 1.01 300
1973 Whitbread Extra Stout 1055.7 1013.7 5.56 75.40% 6.31 1.45 375
1971 Boddington WSS 1030.5 1009.0 2.84 70.49% 5.75 0.74 300
1969 Truman Stout 1030.7 1012.7 2.38 58.56% 4.48 0.57
1969 Elgood Stout 1030.0 1011.1 2.50 63.07% 3.56 0.48
Average 1037.4 1011.7 3.40 67.83% 5.15 0.82 325
Sources:
Fremlin brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number U3555/2/F/Bx2/1/93.
Adnams brewing record held at the brewery
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/141.
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/134.
Truman Ale book held by Derek Prentice.
Elgood brewing record held at the brewery
Quite a variation in gravity there. But the outlier – Extra Stout – differs from the others in being purely an export beer. All the others are in the 1030ºs.

The rates of attenuation are all over the place. The Whitbread and Adnams Stout have a normal 75%. (Though it should be borne in mind that the Mackeson in the table is before the addition of lactose.) While the Truman and Fremlin examples are both under 60%.

It’s no surprise, then, four of the seven examples are below 3% ABV. Truman’s is even under 2.5% ABV. Lovely and watery with no kick of alcohol. Yum.

There’s also quite a spread in the hopping rates. Ranging from 3.5 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt to almost 6.5 lbs. That’s quite a difference.



More...