Thursday 18 November 2010

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1928 Barclay Perkins IPA

What a treatarooney kiddywinks. A traditional IPA. Not one of those stupid strong things. A proper, low-gravity IPA. You know the type. The ones that were actually most typical of the style.

Yes, time for beer number two in mine and Kristen's 1920's Barclay Perkins recipe series. I'm really pleased he's chosen this beer. For two reasons. I've got an image of the appropriate label. (If you make the beer and bottle it, why not use the real label?) And it gives me a chance to bang on about traditional IPA a bit.

Brewers in London and the Southeast often made beers called IPA. As a rule, these beers were weaker than the brewery's PA. Many of the IPA's were, like this one, specifically bottled beers. I can only think of one that still survives: Harvey's IPA. Where was I? Ah yes, IPA weaker than PA. Barclay Perkins PA had an OG of 1053º. A good bit higher than the 1046º of this baby.

The origins of these IPAs was the end of the 19th century. Whitbread introduced theirs in 1899. It was 1051º to their PA's 1058º. By the 1920's, that had dropped to 1036º and 1046º. As I'm sure you've noticed, Whitbread's versions were a good bit weaker than Barclay Perkins.

This is a very early version of Barclay Perkins IPA. It first appeared in 1927, replacing XLK (bottling). That was a bottled version of their Ordinary Bitter.At only 1038º, it was a pretty puny beer.

IPA was not a strong beer. Have I said that recently? It still bears repeating: IPA was not a strong beer. Do you think people will listen if I say it often enough?



On that happy note, it's over to Kristen . . . . .




Barclay Perkins - 1928 - IPA - Bottling
General info: Great little traditional IPA recipe. OG and BU are about equal. Lots of fresh hops of three different varieties. You'll notice the No3 Invert which is highly unusual for an IPA. A note in the log responds to this, "No2 saccharin not delivered in time. No3 used instead." They added a bit of caramel for a fine tuning of the color but it’s not worth it here. This beer tastes very much like Fullers London Pride. A little more bitter but very similar.
Beer Specifics

Recipe by percentages
Gravity (OG)
1.046

57.4% English Pale malt
0%
Gravity (FG)
1.010

17.6% American 6-row
0%
ABV
4.80%

13.2% Flaked Maize

Apparent attenuation
78.27%

11.8% Invert No3

Real attenuation
64.11%

0%

IBU
41.2

Mash
90min@152°F
0.8qt/lb

SRM
10


90min@66.7°C
1.68L/kg

EBC
20.0










Boil
2.25 hours













Homebrew @ 70%
Craft @ 80%
Grist
5gal
19L
10bbl
10hl
English Pale malt
5.06
lb
2.304
kg
274.49
lb
106.05
kg
American 6-row
1.56
lb
0.709
kg
84.46
lb
32.63
kg
Flaked Maize
1.17
lb
0.532
kg
63.34
lb
24.47
kg
Invert No3
1.04
lb
0.473
kg
56.31
lb
21.75
kg









Hops








Cluster 7% 120min
0.31
oz
8.8
g
19.31
oz
0.466
kg
Fuggle 5.5% 60min
1.04
oz
29.4
g
64.35
oz
1.555
kg
Fuggle 5.5% 30min
0.55
oz
15.5
g
33.93
oz
0.820
kg
Goldings 4.5% dry hop
0.21
oz
6.1
g
13.30
oz
0.321
kg









Fermentation
63°F /17.2°C















Yeast
Nottingham ale

1968 London ESB Ale Yeast  - WLP002 English Ale Yeast









Tasting Notes:
Deep golden colour with a pillowy head. Herbal, spice and citrus notes. Ladyfingers and biscuits. Crips, clean, minerally, dry hoppy finish. Bloody spot on pint.


cccccc

12 comments:

John Clarke said...

Low gravity IPA. What a minefield. Here in the UK I subscribe to a newsgroup called "scoopgen" it's mainly for beer tickers but occasionally has an item of other interest. I got into an argument about IPAs (as ever someone was banging on about how they had to be about 6.5%-plus to be "authentic") and I raised the point that lower gravity IPAs had been around since the late 19th Century and suggested that the Victorians probably knew what they were doing. This produced a memorable riposte "who says the Victorians were right?". Sigh. Banging your head against such a wall of ignorance can be wearing at times.

Kristen England said...

From all the hundreds of logs I have seen and transcribed I can say that the vast majority of IPA's look like this one. For a 'current' version of an IPA I would think it would be much more like the Burton ales (K's) and the like. 1060's. 65bu. Quite a bit darker actually. Ron?

Ron Pattinson said...

Kristen, when I finally get to see Bass's records, I'll be able to tell you what Burton IPA was like.

Flagon of Ale said...

Interesting that they use a 30 min hop addition. I had assumed that adding hops in the "middle" of the boil was something that happened later than this. Am I mistaken? Seems like lots of the IPA recipes I've seen here are just a whole lot of hops boiled for 90 minutes.

Kristen England said...

Not really from what I remember. Most or two additions or 3. A lot of the BP logs indicate the first hops go in at make up and then at 90min and then 30min. Then a decent dose of dry hops.

dana said...

Ron, you're missing a 'lets brew' tag, so this doesn't show up in the lets brew link. fyi

Ron Pattinson said...

Dana, thanks for pointing that out. Now fixed.

Larry Tate said...

Excellent site here!

I wanted to ask about the #3 invert. Is that some kind of sugar? Many of these old recipes have these "inverts" as ingredients--how can I reproduce them in my own homebrew?

I'm excited about reading the rest of your blog archives.

--Alan

Ron Pattinson said...

Larry, No. 3 is a dark invert sugar. Mostly used in Dark Mild and Porter or Stout.

Kristen has posted links to where he explains how to make invert sugars. Not sure where it is though. I'll have a look.

Anonymous said...

Larry,

http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert

Pyramid Head said...

Kristen, I'm a bit confused about the yeast suggestions. Isn't Nottingham too neutral campared to WLP002 and London ESB?

Pyramid Head said...

Little update. I just realized this recipe was taken from Mitch Steele's book about IPA, and Mitch seems to recommend the same yeast in pretty much all historical recipes. So now I'm gonna change my question and redirect it to you Ron: I've noticed you use Wyeast 1099 in every Barclay Perkins recipe. Why is that? Oh, and another thing if you allow me. Considering they Fermentis saf-04, and Windsor, Nottingham and ESB from Lallemand are the only options in my country right now, would saf-04 be the best substitution? I understand both yeasts (I mean 1099 and 04) came from Whitbread, but they aren't the same, given that one is the "A" strain, and the other is the "B" strain.
Thank you so much in advance Ron. I'm entering in the world of historical recipes, but I'm having struggles with the ingredients available in here.