1909 Beer Style Guide

By Ronald Pattinson and Kristen England

A guide to the beers of Edwardian Britain. The styles of the day, and how to brew them, are described in obsessive detail. London beers, Burton Ales, enigmatic Scottish Ales are all itemised and dissected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781447542933

Book preview

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1909 Beer Style Guide

By

Ronald Pattinson & Kristen England

Copyright © 2009 Ronald Pattinson & Kristen England

The right of Ronald Pattinson to be identified as the author of his work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

COPYRIGHT, DESIGNS AND PATENTS ACT OF 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.

Published in January 2010 by

Kilderkin

171 hs Warmondstraat, Amsterdam, Noord- Holland

ISBN 978-94-90270-12-4

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Introduction

I’ve many dreams. But one endures. Of Edwardian beer. Or rather getting the chance to drink Edwardian beer. I hope this book will increase my chances of that happening someday.

Beer styles are not static. Especially not British ones. For the greater part of the 20th century they were in a process of perpetual flux. Most changes were the result, direct or indirect, of the great political events of the day. In particular WW I. This book provides a snapshot of British beer on the eve of that cataclysmic event.

Edwardian beers may bear the same names as their modern counterparts, but they were very different in character. Especially with regards to strength. It wasn’t unusual for an ordinary Mild to be more than 5% ABV and a Bitter over 6%. Or take Guinness Extra Stout. Until 1917 that was 7.5% ABV and a totally different beer.

The Edwardian pub offered much greater variety than those of today. In London, a typical draught lineup would have looked something like this:

You’ll note that, Porter and Stout excepted, there are no variations on a theme. Each beer is discrete and with its own specific character. Quite different from today’s choice of Bitter or Bitter and a strength range of 3.7% to 4.2% ABV.

This is the period when bottled beer was gaining popularity. Especially the lighter kinds of bottled Ales, such as Dinner Ale and London-style IPA. There were also beers at the other end of the strength and weight scale in bottles: Imperial Stout, Barley Wine and strong Old Ales. Though aged beer, which underwent a long brettanomyces secondary fermentation, had gone out of fashion. Ironically, just when, with the discovery of brettanomyces and its role, the process had been understood for the first time.

There’s only been one source for this book: brewing records. I’ve analysed hundreds from the period 1900 to 1916. That’s what makes this book unique. It’s the first beer style guide to be based 100% on fact. The style descriptions aren’t based on my personal feelings, narrow personal experience, supposition or guesswork. They’re drawn from real beers.

Now here’s a caveat. Though they are wonderfully informative in most areas, Edwardian brewing records do not record colour. To make things even trickier, brewers also had a habit of adjusting colour after brewing by the addition of caramel or some other very dark brewing sugar. I’ve tried to estimate as best I can the colour of the finished beers. Based on the ingredients used and the few bits of hard data I have. Don’t treat the colour numbers as gospel.

Style overview

This section provides a quick introduction to the types of beer brewed, the families to which they belonged, their specific characteristics and the amounts produced.

If many of the names seem familiar, well, that’s because they are. These are the direct ancestors of the British styles still being produced. Though in most cases the Edwardian versions are quite different from their descendants. Most notably in the question of strength. Milds, for example, have almost halved in strength, and modern Stout – as epitomized by Guinness – isn’t really stout at all.

Other styles – AK, Dinner Ale, KKK – have slipped into the mists of time. For the most part. There is, after all, McMullen’s AK. The wide variety of Stouts is confusing to modern minds, used to little more than Guinness and Imperial Stout. I think it’s tidy that all the gaps between those two extremes were filled.

The beers brewed in the Edwardian period fall into 5 general groups:

See Table

Here are the vital statistics of the styles of 1909:

Style overview 1909

Sources:

Various brewing records.

This will give you an idea of the relative price of each type of beer:

Godsell & Sons, Stroud, Gloucs 1909 price list

Here you can see the relative importance, in terms of sales, of the different types:

Whitbread sales in 1910 by beer type

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Edwardian brewing techniques

Mashing

In well-equipped breweries, water for mashing was heated in the hot-liquor back. Usual practice was to boil the water the evening before brewing for 15 minutes. It cooled overnight and needed to be reheated to get to the correct mashing temperature. Boiling ensured that the water was sterile. Most water contained chalk, which precipitated out when boiled, taking with it any organic matter in the water to the bottom of the back. To stop this getting into the mash, the opening through which the water was drawn off was always a few inches above the bottom.¹

If the water was hardened with gypsum or other salts, it was added while the water was being boiled.²

The mash tun was warmed with hot water or steam before mashing started.³

The initial temperature, that is the temperature of the mash after the grain had been mixed together, varied depending on the variety of malt being used and the type of beer required. Initial heats varied between 145º F and 155º F. The striking heat, that is the temperature of the water before it was mixed with the malt, was determined by taking into account a number of factors, such as the temperature of the malt and the volume of water per quarter of malt. Brewing manuals contained tables to allow brewers to easily calculate the necessary striking heat.⁴

Beers intended for storage are, as a rule, brewed from pale malts. These are mashed at a somewhat higher degree of temperature than high-dried malts, for we require, in this class of beers, a fairly large quantity of those dextrins which ferment very slowly, and which, since they provide for a long, slow, continued fermentation, keep the ale (through the period of its storage) charged with gas. High-dried malts are mashed at a somewhat lower temperature, since the beers produced from them are quickly consumed, and here we require a wort which contains large quantities and of those maltodextrins which give fulness and sweetness to the beer. Between these two types of beer, which may be seen as extremes, there are many other intermediate ones that are brewed to suit the particular wants of different neighbourhoods.⁵

As most malt contained more than enough diastase, a temperature high enough to destroy some of it was used. If all the diastase remained active, too much maltose would be produced, resulting in a thin-bodied beer.⁶

Despite all the theory, experience still played a big part. A delicate appreciation of the right initial heat to be employed with different malts to produce different beers of the required character is only to be obtained by actual experience and is one of those things for which hard and fast rules cannot be laid down.⁷

If the mash tun was fitted with a Steel's masher, hot water, at the correct striking heat, was run through it into the mash tun until it just covered the false bottom. Then grist and water were put through the masher which mixed them together and pushed them into the tun. Brewers learnt to be able judge if the proportions were right by observing consistency of the stream as it tumbled into the tun. If it were not quite right, the flow of grain and water could be adjusted accordingly. The Steel's masher was very efficient as it heated the grain uniformly. Which is doubtless one of the reasons it is still in use today.⁸

If the tun had an internal rake masher, the procedure was somewhat different. First a little more water than actually required for the mash, at a slightly higher temperature than the striking heat, was run into the mash tun. When the tun had warmed up, the taps were opened to flush the spend pipes. If the water were still too hot, the masher was switched on and after a few revolutions it would have cooled to the right temperature. The tun was closed and the grain dropped quickly into the water. The rakes were kept turning as the malt was being added at a little less than on revolution per minute. After all the malt had been added, the rakes were kept turning for a further 15 minutes until the grain and water had mixed to an even constituency. The disadvantage of this method was that not all the grain was heated to the same temperature, as it was with an external masher.⁹

The total amount of water needed to brew a beer of a certain gravity was calculated taking into account the water that would be absorbed by the malt (28 to 30 gallons per quarter) and the hops (53 gallons per 100 pounds) and would be lost through evaporation during the boil, cooling and fermentation (around 30%).¹⁰ The amount of water used in the mash was between 1.5 and 2.5 barrels per quarter of malt. As the total amount of water was constant, the thicker the mash, the more water could be used when sparging. A thick mash and generous sparge was the best way of getting the greatest extract from the grain.¹¹

After the mash had stood for about 15 minutes, more water, at a temperature 10º to 12º F higher than the striking heat, was added via the underlet. If the tun had a rake masher, this was given 4 revolutions to mix the new water evenly through the mash. In tuns with an external masher, the water was added very slowly so that it could gradually spread through the mash.¹²

There were two reasons for raising the temperature of the mash: to produce a greater proportion of higher maltodextrins; to compensate for poor quality malt. When doing the former, the temperature of the mash was raised to 158º F or more in order to check diastatic activity. The time standing was also usually reduced to just an hour. When compensating for poor malt, the initial heat was very low - 140º to 145º F. After half an hour, the temperature of the mash was gradually raised to 155º F and then left to stand until all the starch had been converted. The mash could be heated either by adding extra water through the underlet or by the use of a heating device within the mash tune, such as a steam coil.¹³

The mash was left to stand until all the starch had been converted. Samples of wort were taken at regular intervals and tested with iodine. As soon as no starch was detected, the taps were opened and the wort run off.¹⁴

Some breweries