Monday 1 April 2013

Tetley Milds in 1888 (part one)

As my interminable series on Tetley Milds trundles on we've hit the 1880's. The decade of the revolution in brewing brought about by the Free Mash Tun Act. What impact will it have had at Tetley?

You're going to have to wait until part two for the answer to that question when we look at grists. Today we're looking at all the boring stuff like boil times. Aren't you a lucky bunny?

To make up for any possible disappointment at the lack of gristy goodness, there's a special bonus table this time around. It compares Tetley's Milds in 1878 and 1888. What does it tell us? A few interesting things.

First, that Tetley's gravities went up slightly between 1878 and 1888. On average, they increased by about two gravity points. Not sure why this should be, unless the change in the tax regime brought in by the Free Mash Tun Act lowered the tax they were paying.

Second, that the hopping rate of the two weakest Milds, X and X1, fell. A fall of about 1 pound per quarter, or 10-20% in terms of pounds per barrel. The hopping rate of the next two Milds in the hierarchy, X2 and X3, stayed about the same. I don't know what happened to XX as I don't have an example from 1888. I know that it hadn't been discontinued, at least not permanently, because I do have one from the 1890's.

Here's that information in tabular form:


Tetley Milds in 1878 and 1888
1878 1888
Beer OG lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl OG lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl
X 1044.3 5.31 0.83 1046 4.31 0.69
X1 1048.5 6.23 1.16 1053.7 5.31 1.02
X1 1052.1 6.27 1.32 1053.7 5.31 1.02
X2 1060.4 6.24 1.47 1062.6 8.4 1.94
X2 1060.9 8.32 1.92 1063.2 4 2
X3 1069.3 11.60 3.43 1071.2 12 3.57
XX 1077.6 14.00 5.89
Sources:
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service document number WYL756/25/ACC1903
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service document number WYL756/44/ACC1903

That's the bonus round over. Let's get on with my usual comparison with London.

As before, there's no equivalent in London of Tetley's weakest Mild, X. For the first time we have Fullers represented in the London table and you can see a difference between the gravities of their Milds and those of the larger London breweries. Fuller's X is weaker and similar to Tetley's X1 in strength. Fuller's XX is only about the same gravity as the X from Whitbread and Barclay Perkins. It's more complicated in the case of Truman as they brewed their X Ale to two different strengths: 1053 an 1059.

Tetley's X2 is roughly equivalent to the X from the big London brewers. The strongest Tetley Mild in this set, X3, is weaker than Barclay Perkins XX. And not much stronger than Whitbread's XK, which looks like a one and a half X.

There's a strange pattern when it comes to attenuation. At Tetley, the attenuation increases the stronger the beer. In London, it's the other way around. Which means the weaker Tetley Milds are less well-attenuated than their London equivalents, while the stronger ones are more attenuated. Note that the FG's of all the Tetley Milds are very similar. How Scottish.

Moving on to the hopping rate, that of Tetley X1 is broadly similar to Barclay Perkins, Whitbread and Truman X and Fuller's XX, beers of similar gravity. It's hard to say much about X3 because the only beer of similar gravity, Barclay Perkins XX, has wildly varying hopping rates between the two examples in the table.

Boil times are easy: generally a little bit longer at Tetley.

We see the same story as in earlier years with the fermentation temperature. Tetley's pitched warmer, but let the wort heat up less during fermentation. The difference between pitching and maximum temperatures is just 3-7º F. In London it was mostly 10º F or more.

The fermentation was generally 2 or 3 days quicker in London, with the exception of Fullers, where it was 2 or 3 days longer.

One last general point. You can see how in London no brewer made more than two Milds, while Tetley still brewed at least four and probably five. London brewers seem to have reduced their range of Milds earlier than those outside the capital. I've no idea why this should be.

Next time we'll be looking at the grists.



Tetley Milds in 1888
Date Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. fermen-tation temp length of fermen-tation (days)
10th May 1888 X 1046.0 1016.6 3.88 63.86% 4.31 0.67 2 65º 68º 8
11th May 1888 X 1046.0 1016.1 3.96 65.06% 4.31 0.69 2 65º 68º 8
11th May 1888 X1 1053.7 1016.6 4.91 69.07% 5.31 1.02 2 63º 68º 8
11th May 1888 X2 1062.6 1016.6 6.08 73.45% 8.40 1.94 3 61º 68º 8
9th May 1888 X2 1063.2 1018.8 5.86 70.18% 4.00 2.00 3 64º 67º 8
14th May 1888 X2 1063.2 1016.6 6.16 73.68% 8.40 2.02 3 65º 68º 9
13th Jun 1888 X3 1071.2 1016.1 7.29 77.43% 12.00 3.57 3 63º 68º 8
Source:
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service document number WYL756/44/ACC1903

London Milds 1886 - 1888
Date Year Brewer Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. fermen-tation temp length of fermen-tation (days)
28th Dec 1886 Barclay Perkins X 1060.0 1012.2 6.33 79.69% 6.27 1.58 1.5 2 63º 72º 3 + 2
24th Jun 1886 Barclay Perkins X 1064.0 1015.0 6.49 76.63% 8.00 1.97 2 2.5 60º 72º 3 + 3
21st May 1886 Barclay Perkins XX 1076.0 1022.7 7.05 70.11% 12.00 3.86 2.5 60º 67º 2 + 4
17th Aug 1886 Barclay Perkins XX 1076.0 1022.4 7.09 70.48% 18.00 6.59 2 60º 70º 3 + 3
1st Mar 1888 Whitbread X 1060.7 1016.9 5.79 72.15% 7.62 2.06 1.75 2.17 60º º
1st Mar 1888 Whitbread XK 1068.1 1020.8 6.27 69.51% 7.62 2.32 1.75 2.17 60º º
23rd Apr 1887 Fuller X 1054.6 1020.5 4.51 62.44% 6.64 1.63 1.5 1.75 58º 71º 12
23rd Apr 1887 Fuller XX 1064.8 1023.3 5.50 64.10% 6.64 1.93 1.5 1.75 57º 72º 12
12th Jul 1886 Truman D Ale 1052.6 6.1 1.44 2 2 2.5 2.5 62º º
12th Jul 1886 Truman X Ale 1058.7 6.0 1.57 2 2 2 2 62º º
18th May 1886 Truman X Ale 1058.7 8.1 2.11 2 2 2.25 2.25 60.5º º
Sources:
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number LMA/4453/D/01/053.
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.
Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number B/THB/C/166.
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers ACC/2305/1/583 and ACC/2305/1/584.


4 comments:

Gary Gillman said...

I wonder if the taste for mild was always more rooted in the rural counties and therefore its iterations lasted longer than in the faster-paced London. Or perhaps distribution and other logistics required a rationalization of the types of one "style" available in a big place like London.

Gary

Ron Pattinson said...

Gary,

no. Mild was incredibly popular in London. It's just it was all one type.

The amounts of stronger Mild brewed in the country were probably pretty small. Perhaps it was just that a smaller brewery could more easily brew small quantities.

And that, in London, the place of stronger Milds was taken by KK and KKK. Burton Ales. You don't see them so much out in the sticks.

Tom said...

Hi Ron. I don't recall seeing anything about the J W Cameron brewery of Hartlepool in your posts?

Ron Pattinson said...

Tom, that's because I haven't posted anthing about Cameron yet.