Monday 2 October 2017

Session Imperial Stout grists

Bet you thought I’d forgotten about this. And you’d be right. I did forget, distracted by more German top-fermenting stuff.

That’s my biggest problem: I’m interested in too much. I really have try hard to keep my focus, which is British and, to a lesser extent, German beer. If I didn’t, I’d be off all over the place. Believe me, it’s a real struggle.

Back to the beer I’m supposed to be discussing, Barclay Perkins Session Imperial Stout. There are a couple of interesting points about the grist. The use of roast barley is the most obvious. London brewers mostly preferred black malt. And the amount – around 10%.

The versions from the 1920’s have a crazy proportion of dark malts: around 35%. I was so surprised that I went back and checked the brewing records. And it is correct. There’s less than 50% base malt. Though that did decline after WW II started, with the brown malt percentage in particular declining. All those dark malts must have produced quite a thick beer, despite not being massively strong. And a very roasty one.

The amount of flaked maize is quite low. 10-15% was typical of other Barclay Perkins beers of the time. The oats, in this case, aren’t a wartime thing. Look at the tiny quantity. It’s because it was being part-gyled with London Stout, some of which was sold as Oatmeal Stout, requiring a tiny amount of oats for legal purposes.

Barclay Perkins Session Imperial Stout grains 1921 - 1941
Year OG MA malt SA malt brown malt amber malt crystal malt roast barley oats flaked maize flaked rice
1921 1061.3 45.77% 13.46% 12.12% 9.42% 5.38%
1924 1061.4 47.00% 13.82% 12.44% 9.68% 5.53%
1928 1060.4 45.98% 13.79% 12.64% 10.34% 4.60%
1929 1060.7 27.15% 29.86% 10.86% 10.86% 8.14% 5.43%
1936 1060.4 40.43% 8.31% 5.26% 11.63% 6.65% 11.63% 0.28% 4.43%
1940 1055.4 43.29% 5.70% 10.25% 5.70% 11.19% 0.14% 9.11%
1941 1055.6 65.23% 4.30% 9.86% 5.02% 10.04% 0.18%
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/01/608, ACC/2305/01/611, ACC/2305/01/614, ACC/2305/01/621, ACC/2305/01/623 and ACC/2305/01/624.

Sugars next.

Unsurprisingly, most version contain No. 3 invert and all caramel. The lactose in the wartime versions I suspect is there for the same reason as oats. Because they were selling some of the London Stout it was parti-gyled with as Milk Stout as well as Oatmeal Stout. So I guess those beer ware Session Imperial Milk Oatmeal Stout.

Someone is bound to have brewed something called that in the last 10 years thinking they were being innovative. As I keep saying, almost nothing in beer is genuinely new, other than hop varieties.

Barclay Perkins Session Imperial Stout sugars 1921 - 1941
Year OG no. 2 sugar no. 3 sugar caramel Martineau BS lactose other sugar
1921 1061.3 12.56% 1.28%
1924 1061.4 11.06% 0.46%
1928 1060.4 12.26% 0.38%
1929 1060.7 7.24% 0.45%
1936 1060.4 1.48% 2.95% 1.05% 5.91%
1940 1055.4 0.95% 1.52% 12.15%
1941 1055.6 3.35% 1.55% 0.48%
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/01/608, ACC/2305/01/611, ACC/2305/01/614, ACC/2305/01/621, ACC/2305/01/623 and ACC/2305/01/624.

The other sugar in the 1940 version is probably No. 3 invert. They just don’t specify the sugar type in the brewing record.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Ron
Just found this and your blog in general. How interesting! Our 2005 brew of Barclay Perkins full-strength stout found approval with the late Michael Jackson. Anyway...

Where would I find the hop rates for this Session RIS?

cheers

David Edge

Ron Pattinson said...

Hi David,

you can find the ghopping rates here:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.nl/2017/09/session-imperial-stout.html

Unknown said...

Many thanks, Ron
d.