Wednesday 20 July 2011

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1950 Whitbread Exp PA

An exotic treat for you today: a strong export Pale Ale from the early 1950's.

It's a funny period. British beer strengths were just starting to recover from their postwar nadir. But most beers were still pretty week. Whitbread Best Ale (Mild) was only 1032º, IPA 1035º and PA 1040º. Not particularly impressive. Apart from the odd strong beer  that was made in tiny quantities, there was almost nothing stronger and 1050º. Which is why this is an unusual beer.

Whitbread had been in the export business for a long while. Like most other large London brewers they took advantage of the port and Britain's imperial muscle to ship beer all around the world. For the export trade, already weakened at the end of the 19th century by the growth of Lager, the glory days ended with WW I. Most foreign markets had been closed or dried up. Sales in the empire had been badly hit as colonies built their own brewing industries.

Where was left? Belgium.

Let's take a look in detail at British exports:


British Beer Exports 1946 – 1953








1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953
Channel Isands 5,342 7,021 9,958 9,693 6,505 2,721 8,959 9,815
Gibraltar 5,698 7,077 6,958 7,609 8,530 8,693 8,183 8,325
Malta 414 521 673 897 336 624 445 484
Cyprus
2,593 2,312 2,112 2,538 4,002 2,712 2,099
British West Africa 1,574 5,797 18,044 34,626 33,811 35,593 50,636 58,049
British East Africa 1,361 2,624 7,316 13,391 4,014 4,341 1,900 1,511
Aden 50 1,284 2,327 4,200 2,684 2,006 2,897 5,927
Bahrein, Koweit, etc
594 5,141 7,813 4,099 4,039 5,073 4,756
India and Pakistan 69,278 8,130 17,075 18,076 15,333 11,890 9,451 5,617
British Malaya 26,270 6,377 10,463 12,258 11,666 14,412 6,028 5,447
Ceylon 2,648 7,686 3,565 6,669 6,363 5,605 5,656 8,624
Hong Kong 10,062 5,873 5,679 12,863 9,508 12,027 7,254 4,811
Australia
54 8,481 18,761 16,879 35,790 8,303 57
Canada
313 1,598 1,281 2,090 3,352 3,680 3,892
Bermuda 22 788 977 1,603 2,843 1,901 1,466 948
British West India Islands 251 1,045 15,087 14,009 15,459 15,213 16,112 17,123
Bbritish Guiana 38 175 1,991 2,752 3,871 3,247 6,056 6,594
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
1,843 3,069 5,747 5,291 6,805 6,277 3,035
Irish Republic 221 3,280 11,327 6,201 4,225 5,223 4,966 4,674
Other British Countries 74 972 6,470 6,719 7,153 8,927 10,260 6,570
total 123,303 64,047 138,511 187,280 163,198 186,411 166,314 158,358









Norway 595

1

17 79
Iceland 11
7 5 1 1 10 20
Faroe Islands 12
6




Germany 543 1,196 3,275 3,140 3,144 5,349 3,995 3,618
Belgium 1,405 3,414 34,288 33,786 33,362 45,733 50,237 55,240
France 756 193 294 611 645 817 882 852
Italy 2,564 121 71 17 44 28 21 92
Greece
2,954
1,917 137 196 24
Algeria

18


5 6
Libya 14 190 3,381 6,576 4,571 4,150 3,040 1,634
Transjordan
95 675 821 155 362 227 66
Palestine 1,299 8,684 3,045




Egypt 12,536 12,709 7,587 6,999 4,782 11,001 29,288 51,981
Iraq 1,760 7,792 5,621 4,936 2,503 3,763 2,516 3,619
Iran 1,898 1,700 1,996 1,971 553 259 89
Burma 40,439 5,695 31 147 636 1,018 1,800 1,173
USA
270 2,986 1,921 1,563 967 1,373 1,328
Other Foreign Countries 283 620 3,306 3,999 5,916 15,378 7,552 6,873
total 64,115 45,633 66,587 66,847 58,012 89,022 101,076 126,581
Grand total 187,418 109,680 205,098 254,127 221,210 275,433 267,390 284,939
Source:







“1955 Brewers' Almanack”, pages 58-59.








As you can see, in 1950 Belgium was the second biggest recipient of British exports, second only by a few barrels to British West Africa. Belgium received more than 50% of exports to non-British countries and 15% of all exports.

Whitbread Pale Ale is still sold in Belgium. No idea where it's brewed.






That's me done. Over to Kristen . . . . . . .










Kristen’s Version
A very straightforward beer here that doesn’t require a whole lot of explanation. This one does very well on cask as it can get a bit ‘tinny’ on draught.




Ingredients

Grist–Three different English pale malts. Really your choice here. All are indicated as ‘second’ grade so its really your preference here. I used Maris Otter, Golden Promise and some Halcyon split evenly. For the sugar I used straight No1 invert. Very simple to make and use in this beer. The tiny bit of caramel does add a hint of caramelly goodness but very little of anything else. A very simple recipe so make your decisions based on your preference. I think the %sugar to malt is what I’d focus on more than what type of malt. See how this much sugar plays in this beer. You can split your batch and add your sugar directly to your fermenter if you’d like. Just be sure to calculate your hopping BU if you do this as the lower gravity will extract more bitterness.

Hops–They call for Worcester Goldings which I used b/c I had them and don’t get to use them very often.
Wonderful little hops that I wish I got more often. Stick with something Goldings or go experimenting at your leisure just make sure they are lower alpha hops.

Yeast – The dry or the wet Whitbread works very nicely here. I’m not a big fan but it plays very nice with the sugar in the beer.

4 comments:

Gary Gillman said...

In the 1970's, I recall Whitbread's bottled pale ale as we got it in Canada tasting much like the taste notes, except not as strong (can't recall exact strength, maybe 5%). That chewy malt quality - I remember it like yesterday - really!

Gary

Oblivious said...

A lets brew Wednesday on Wednesday,i feel dirty

Looks like a lover recipe though, one to keep in mind for future brews

dave said...

I like how Norway and Iceland each received one barrel of beer in certain years. One barrel! I wonder what those single barrels were, or for whom?

Kristen England said...

I particularly liked this one as it was something that a lot of people have had. At least a similar version of it. I've had the current version and it really isn't horribly far off from this beer. Really gives people an idea of what a high percent of sugar does to a beer like this.

Also, if you want, you can split the batch in half, add sugar to one fermenter and none to the other. You'll have a sort of bitter and this beer.