The concept of attempting to brew a historic brewery beer of any kind in these modern times could be seen as a pointless endeavour because on the face of it such a beer will never be exactly as it was. That statement is of course 100% true, but if you only believe in such absolutes and regard anything less as pointless then historical brewing isn’t for you, as it’s a hobby that’s certainly embraces The Ish.
What we are actually aiming for is a historic-ish brew with as close-ish as possible ingredients while using old-ish methods. If you aren’t leaning into The Ish then you won’t be happy with the compromises that need to be made, and conversely if you don’t try to negate and minimise The Ish then you might as well brew a modern beer. It will certainly be easier and there are plenty of tried and tested recipes available. So if you don’t enjoy the search for original recipes, the hunt for the right ingredients, and sticking as close as possible to the process then you haven’t really done the best you can by the recipe and the original brewers of that beer. Neither will you get as close as you possibly can to what the beer tasted like so, to me, it seems a little pointless not to at least try your best, but for sure the whole process is based on a certain amount of compromise.
It all comes down to replicating and controlling what you can and adapting the things you cannot, and it requires more than a little passion in the subject, plus a ridiculous and pointless need to replicate a long dead beer.
Before we start it’s important to flag the work of two people who were of great help to me at the onset with my research and early attempts at recreating what were, and still are, mostly old Irish beers from old Irish recipes. Those people are Ron Pattinson and Edd Mather, and both would be familiar to those with an interest in historical brews, and I would encourage those who are new to this to visit their websites and to buy Ron’s books. Ron is probably more well known and publishes recipes that are easily adapted by homebrewers for their own use, while Edd's are much more detailed but still usable for hobbyists.
And while Ron and Edd produce the recipes, they don’t do any homebrewed versions as far as I am aware(?), although Ron has certainly done commercial ones! I differ in my approach because I like taking the whole process from the finding of the recipe all the way to drinking the finished product, and I rarely publish recipes. I leave that to both of them, and they are quite prolific at it!
I eventually stopped bugging both of them about recipes and started to develop my own versions, adapted to a homebrew BIAB (Brew in a Bag) method at first before upgrading to a Grainfather with software and Bluetooth, and if you think that the irony of brewing old beers on such a modern system is lost on me, I can assure you it most certainly is not! But that software is hugely beneficial when it comes to easing the development and adaption of recipes.
-o-
The Source
The first hurdle to clamber across if you want to brew a historic beer is finding an actual recipe. (Ron and Edd, and others, have plenty for you to copy if you want to skip this bit, and the whole post and go straight to brewing!) This is by far the trickiest issue in Ireland where old brewing records are extremely scarce. Some are held in the Guinness Archive, others by Cork University, and one batch in Portlaoise Library, and those cover just a tiny handful of Irish breweries, only five I believe. Apart from that we are indebted to scribbled notes by those who visited the breweries and made notes regarding some of the brewing process, and books on the subject, but even those are very scarce.
In England, and perhaps Scotland and Wales, there seems to be no end to the brewing records available. Either held by the breweries themselves, of which there were many more than on this island, or in local study archives. We certainly should have more records here but they are either in private hands or worse still, have been destroyed.
So those in the UK can find these sources relatively easily but those here need to make a trip to the three sources and take notes and photos of said records. This I must stress is only if you want to replicate a certain beer from our brewing history, but I’d argue that if you don’t do this then you won’t have enough personal knowledge to even pay homage to a particular old beer style. The act of looking at the scribbled notes of a long dead brewer from our past tends to inspire that passion and need for authent-ish-ity required.
These records will have the usual information such as to the date of the brew, its number (often written as gyle number), and plenty of information on the brew itself. I won’t pretend to know what all of this information means but the most important for a historic-ish brew are the following in my opinion:
The malt – types and amounts, usually in barrels and stones
The hops – sources and weight, usually pounds
Any other additions such as sugars and other adjuncts
The mash length and temperature
The boil lengthThe OG (Original Gravity) before fermentation. (This may be in pound of sugar per gallon so you will need to find a conversion chart to get that figure into the modern system we currently use. I have found one in the archives but I'm sure they are available online in old publications.)
There will be other information in the records too such as sparge temperature, plus yeast and fermentation notes, etc, but if you have the information listed above, with or without the sparge temperature, you have much of what you need to attempt to replicate the beer on a simple homebrew scale.
A word of warning, much of this information was written down just for the brewer's own records so there are abbreviations and scribbles that only he might understand. I am reminded of one lot of 19th century brewing records in the Cork University Library that appear to have been brought over to Ireland from the UK and feature some interesting beers, but the recipes seem illegible and gobbledegook to a homebrewer of my level, for now.
The Recipe
The next step is to break down the ingredients into ratios, which probably isn’t an entirely accurate way of doing things but logically will give us the right proportion of bitterness to biscuitness for our purposes. Convert all volumes and measurements to the one unit (I use kilograms) and calculate the ratio of how much hops and sugars, etc. to the malts, as this will eventually give you the figures you need for the actual brew. One tricky thing here is that old records used barrels per brew for their malt amounts, so volume-based measurements versus the weight-based system we use now. There is an added issue too in that Irish barrels and English barrels were different volumes. This will not be an issue for those in the UK but here we used both sizes, with Irish Barrels being 32 gallons and English being 36 gallons, the size used is sometimes noted on the brewing records but more often is not, so an educated guess may be needed to be made. And you thought this would be easy? As far as the conversion of volume to weight, there are figures available online but the simplest thing to do is to weigh a litre (or a pint if you work that way) of malt and convert the barrels using that figure. This won’t be entirely accurate as moisture levels and other factors mean that we are back to The Ish of historic brewing, but it is certainly within acceptable parameters.
Hops are by weight so that’s easy to add as a ratio, but with hops in the past being a little older and stored in poorer conditions they may have lost some bitterness, so it has been argued that you should use them at 75 or 80% of the historical rate. I haven't researched whether that is the case, although I can see how they might lose aroma, I'm not so sure about bitterness?
By now you should have all of the figures you need – use a spreadsheet if that helps.
This is where the brewing software comes in, I use my Grainfather app but I’m sure others work the same way, or you could conceivably build a complete spreadsheet to achieve the same result.
Set the mash time and temperature as per the recipe and do the same for the boil time. Remember the OG we recorded and possible converted? Set your volume in the app and then add the fermentables, changing them up or down until they reach the OG you want but keeping them in the ratios you worked out.
Next add the hops to the recipe in the right ratio to match the fermentables, this should ensure that you hit the right bitterness to 'sweetness'. Then we hit our first unknown – when to do the hop additions? This is an issue in almost every recipe I’ve viewed, as the timing is never listed, so I tend to defer to either the start of boil or with an hour of boil time to go. The fact that the time is never mentioned makes me believe they are added from the start, and although many people would not recommend this process given the long boil times that we will discuss later, it would seem to be the case that this is what was done, as otherwise it would be mentioned surely?
We will now park our recipe temporarily as we discuss what goes into the actual beer
The Ingredients
The malt is probably the single most important factor in the beer and it is imperative to try and replicate it as much as we can, and there are things we can control and things we can’t here. These days with a little research you can work out which variety of barley was used in a recipe by looking at the brew date and doing a little research. The recipe often shows the grower or origin of the main malt although rarely the variety but once we know the introduction dates of the main heritage barley varieties still available, we can at least use one that is age appropriate. For example, Plumage Archer was introduced first at the very start of the 20th century so it should not be used in a 19th century beer, in those cases Chevallier (early 19th century) would be a better choice from what’s freely available these days. Maris Otter and Hunter would suit beers from the 1960s, and so on. Sadly we have lost a fair few heritage strains so we can only use what we have available. A word of caution, the supply has dried up in Ireland for most, if not all, of these heritage malts so importation may be required. Just like in the past I might add!
The malting process might have changed from then to now but that is outside of the control of the homebrewer, although floor malted varieties are available. If you are up for some experimentation you can also attempt to adapt base malts by adding small amounts of speciality ones to the brew. I have added a little Special W malt to Chevallier in 19th century stouts where the malt was described in a book of the time as having a reddish hue. Hardly accurate, but possibly a way of getting closer to the taste, complexity and colour of that old way of malting. I have also added a little Hanna to one brew as I was trying to replicate a portion of Californian malt that was in one beer and it was commented by someone that the malt from there might be a little higher in proteins – this may not be the case but you can see what I am trying to do with what we have available. Generally though, I try just to use the malts without additions, especially on 20th century beers.
Old brewing and malting books are an important resource too, as the above-mentioned book which was on the brewing of 18th century Irish porters mentions that Irish black malts weren’t in fact as black as English ones but more chocolate in colour, so we know to use chocolate malt and not patent at this time for Irish beers at least. (I have used this book to make a complete recipe because it was so detailed, which I will show below.)
Hops can be an issue too, and again introduction dates can help. Most brewing records mention the English grower by name and foreign hops by country or area. (It’s probably important to note here that most of my comments here are based on my looking at Irish records, others may differ.) You might see ‘Bavarian’ or ‘Sonoma’ or ‘Calif.’ on a brew sheet, so source heritage varieties if possible. Finding Cluster hops, for example, is an issue at the moment so you might need to substitute for the oldest variety you can find. With English hops again pick older varieties, Fuggle is probably okay for late 19th century beers but EKG appears to have an older lineage. Bramling X is 20th century, etc. I think you get the idea. I use whole hops wherever possible, as they would be more authentic, plus they suit by Grainfather better than pellets. Get as close as you can to what the original brewer used. There are enough things that are unknown or unavailable so control what you can, even if a bittering hop is a bittering hop to a point. A touch of pedantry is certainly a boon to this hobby.
Other grains, or adjuncts derived from them, were used too. Flaked grains, propriety malt extracts (some just frustratingly recorded by their initials) and sugars were common. In some cases they are listed in detail, but at other times very poorly. Don’t be surprised to see ‘sugar’ or similar on a brew sheet but no record of what time of sugar was used – see also the word ‘Flaked’. A tip here is to look at notes on the recipes and lists of volumes purchased and used at either the end of the month or in the back of the brew book, that sometimes gives you more details. If using invert sugar I use the recipe in one of Ron's books to create it myself, although if very small amounts are required I have used Golden Syrup, or even just basic Dextrose if the actual sugar isn’t listed.
Water is one area I haven’t tackled in my own brews, yet. In theory, and with a big budget, you could RO your existing water and add whatever was in the water where the beer was brewed, but that historical information is scarce and there is a degree of chemistry knowledge needed that I haven’t attempted to approach, especially given that when available the chemical make-up of the water is approached in a different fashion with different terminology. A simple thing to do might be just to check the general quality of the water now where the beer was brewed regarding PH, and salts and adjust your own water accordingly.
Yeast is a bit of an issue too, as the ones used by these breweries, which they rolled on from brew to brew, was probably a house yeast so it isn’t really possible to replicate them, but these days I tend to lean towards those one of the English ale yeasts that are available which impart a little character. I have used more modern yeasts for certain beers in the past but prefer not to, as again the older styles that preserve a little character of the yeast seem, at least, more correct.
The Process
Using a Grainfather – or similar brewing system and software – the process of actually brewing the beer follows the same lines as what is done for any other beer providing everything is set right in the app. So after a final check that the gravity is correct as well as the ratios of ingredients, just treat the process like a normal brew day. To be honest, I find that the easiest part of the whole musty-brewing-record-page-to-beer-glass process.
If you are in any way worried or concerned about the recipe then now might be a good time to change the batch size, I have done some 10 litre brews in these cases, especially with ones that contain malt extract and sugars that I feel might dry out the beer or affect the flavour.
The mash time may seem excessive but my argument is that it was there for a reason, possibly to do with the wort extraction of the older barley varieties, but I’m not sure – that’s something outside of my knowledge at this point. Those longer mashes certainly don’t seem to do any harm and I would feel that at least, again, we are doing the things we can do right in following the recipe. Remember, we are mitigating The Ish!
The same is true of the boil time, which can be quite long at up to, and over, 2 hours. This I feel is certainly more important as there is a certain colour change, both due to evaporation (that change could be achieved in a shorter boil with some changes to the recipe of course) but also due to a degree of Maillard Reaction, and can be confirmed by the C of ‘burnt’ wort that can be witnessed on the bottom plate of the Grainfather when the brew is finished! There can be no doubt that this has an effect on the beer, but regardless it is another thing we can control in our historic brew. This reaction probably increases when using sugars, and although most recipes don’t list when to add those, and I suspect they were added during the process of transferring the boiled wort to the cooler? I usually add them near the end of the boil in order for them to mixed and dissolved – the 15 min mark seems about right.
Once the beer is chilled, the yeast added and it’s in the fermentor the process again becomes a little more historic-ish, as I am fermenting in a stainless-steel container, which would have been wrong for the older historic brews but is something beyond our control. Dry hopping can be done as per any notes you find, as it might give the weight per barrel if you are lucky. Packaging can be another uncontrollable point, although by bottle-conditioning the beer at least you are using a traditional method. Although I have brewed 1960s beers that were certainly force carbonated but as I had no way to do that, I bottle-conditioned those beers too.
I think that broadly covers the way I brew when trying to get as close as possible to what the actual beer tasted like. Of course in most cases I will never know how close.
Are those beers 100% correct versions of the historical originals? No.
Have I done the best I can to reproduce them given the limitations? Yes.
But I can guarantee I have made mistakes ...
-o-
There is a lot not covered here so I will revisit this topic again and give more details on all the different aspects of my way of brewing the beers depending on what I remember to have left out, or any questions that appear over time.
Anyhow, good luck to all who attempt to brew some historical beers and remember to keep The Ish in historic-ish as small as you can.
I haven't been disappointed with any beer I have brewed in this way, but I would be a bit biased of course. Just about all have turned out very drinkable and enjoyable so don't be afraid to give it a try if you are so inclined.
Here are a couple of my simplified recipes if you fancy giving them a go for starters, and don't forget Ron and Edd:
1870s Irish Porter - OG 1.053 IBU 50.8 EBC 69
Batch Size: 23 LMash Time: 120 minsMash Temp: 64°CBoil Time: 120 minsEfficiency 80%Fermentables:Chevallier 4.6kgSpecial W 500gChocolate Malt 460gHops:EKG 18g - 120 minHallertauer Mittelfruh 18g - 120 minCluster 7g - 60 minEKG 18g - 60 minHallertauer Mittelfruh 18g - 60 minWhirlfloc - 15minsWater: Mash - 18.51 L Sparge - 16.94 LSparge Temp 81°C(!)Yeast: WindsorFinal Gravity was 1.010 and 5.64% abv
As you can see, I've added Special W (as mentioned above) to try and replicate the malting of the base malt, and fudged the hop additions to be on the cautious side. Sparge temp is correct, and the beer turned out excellent, especially after a month or so in the bottle,
Mid-20th Century Irish XX Mild - OG 1.046 IBU 36.5 EBC 20.5
Batch Size: 23 LMash Time: 95 mins
Mash Temp: 62°CBoil Time: 135 minsEfficiency 80%Fermentables:Plumage Archer 4.5kgBlack Malt 80gHops:Fuggle 64g - 90 minWhirlfloc - 15minsWater: Mash - 15.87 L Sparge - 19.55 LSparge Temp 71°CYeast: Fermoale AY3Final Gravity was 1.012 and 4.73% abv
The black malt here seems to have been purely used to add a little colour, it is added to the mash here for convenience but may have been added to the boil.
Enjoy the process and the brewing, and watch that Ish where possible!
(And don't blame me if you burn out the element in your Grainfather, although I haven't. Yet).
Liam
Other sources for historic beer brewing information for you to delve into:
(I know I'm forgetting someone else?)
PS: I have attempted in the past to brew old Irish recipes with commercial breweries but they either weren’t interested, had issues previously with such brews, or they didn’t ‘get’ the concept of getting as close to the original beer as we could, the instead favoured inappropriate ingredients and processes that jarred with me. ‘Surely any bittering hop will do?’ and ‘We don’t need that length of mash or boil, we can just measure', made me think they lacked the commitment to authenticity, even with The Ish! I can appreciate there is cost and time involved for them in making a beer, so I don't really judge them too harshly, I just don't think it's a viable plan as I don't want to compromise on the recipe and they need to make money, and I can't guarantee that. Especially given the tastes of most beer drinkers!
But if a commercial brewer reads this and wants to take a risk, drop me a line!
Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post.
