Wednesday 29 November 2017

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1942 Shepherd Neame BA

A couple of years further into the war and there have been some changes at Shepherd Neame. PA is gone and a new beer, BA, has appeared.

It looks like BA was a replacement for PA, as it seems to be playing the role of Best Bitter. BB, their Ordinary Bitter, as we’ll see later, was even weaker than this. It’s a scene that replayed in brew houses across Britain. Strong Bitters are either discontinued or emasculated.

The biggest change in grists is the appearance of flaked barley. Which I think probably wasn’t voluntary. Flaked maize had been common before the war and the government got brewers to move over to flaked barley instead. It took less energy to produce than malted barley was their thinking.

As ever, I only know for sure that the hops were English. And were from the seasons 1939, 1940, 1941 and 1942 (this beer was brewed in November 1942). Which is why I’ve knocked down the hop quantity.

It’s very lightly hopped for a Pale Ale of any kind. I really don’t get this. The brewery is in hops heartland. It’s odd how few they used.


1942 Shepherd Neame BA
pale malt 7.50 lb 90.25%
flaked barley 0.75 lb 9.03%
malt extract 0.06 lb 0.72%
Fuggles 120 mins 0.50 oz
Goldings 60 mins 0.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins 0.25 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.25 oz
OG 1035
FG 1007
ABV 3.70
Apparent attenuation 80.00%
IBU 18
SRM 3.5
Mash at 154º F
Sparge at 170º F
Boil time 120 minutes
pitching temp 63º F
Yeast a Southern English Ale yeast

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hops heartland - but were the pickers away in the war?

Ron Pattinson said...

Unknown,

they had problems getting pickers for the 1940 harvest because the Battle of Britain was being fought over Kent. Though a bigger problem was the Blitz itself: a third of the 1940 crop was destroyed in one of the early raids on London.

Unknown said...

Thanks Ron. Having gone through the ludicrously complicated validation procedure I don't know why it puts me down as "Unknown"! David Edge

Anonymous said...

From the blog topic and body I thought you would post the BA (Best Bitter) recipe, however you posted the BB (Ordinary Bitter) recipe. Was this intentional?

Ron Pattinson said...

Anonymous,

a slight mistake, now fixed.