Keith's and Oland family recipes to be shared

[Bobbyok]

Just got this email from someone at the Dalhousie Archives:

The Dalhousie Archives will soon be finished with a project to describe all of the business papers of Oland's and the personal papers of the Oland Family. There are some real gems, including blueprints of the Bluenose II, photographs of the breweries (including a copy of this one from NSIS) and dozens of beer recipe books for Oland's and Keith beers. We will have two new finding aids online and an exhibit in the Killam Library...coming soon!

I wonder how they'll justify ever saying that Keith's IPA is anything close to what it was when AK was still around?

[Bobbyok]

Some pictures from the Dal Archives on putting together the Oland and Son project, as well as some early pictures can be found on their Facebook page:

http://tiny.cc/OlandandSon

[Pub Style]

Thanks for posting that link Bobby, and for letting us know about Dalhousie's plans. I remember one day when I was working at the Oland brewery and there were renovations taking place in front reception area. Someone stumbled across an old red leather bound book detailing the history of the Olands with pictures, personal stories, notes, etc.. I was able to take a sneak peek before it was put away in the office somewhere. Never did see it again.

[Bobbyok]

Craig Pinhey has an article in today's Coast about what he was able to find in the Oland and Keith recipe books. Quite the find for homebrewers and historians.

http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/beer-doc ... id=1557947

[G.M. Gillman]

That is very interesting. I've read that 25 pounds of malt are used commercially to brew one barrel. If that is right, then I get a usage of about 1.25 lbs hops per barrel back around the First War era. This correlates approximately to what I have read was typical for U.K. pale ale in the same era. One assumes leaf hops were used in both cases but I think this is probably a fair assumption.

In the 1800's based on my historical reading, pale ale and India Pale Ale had much higher hop levels, anywhere from 2-6 pounds per barrel depending in part on whether the beer was for export. The range did vary in general, some brewers just preferred less hops. Also, in that time it was common to blend old and new hops for the hop bill. Old hops lost bittering capacity with age, and therefore even, say, five pounds per barrel (36 gallons per barrel, true then as now I think) would not equate to 5 leaf pounds of hops today. You could probably knock off 25% for that factor. But still, clearly hop levels were high for pale ale and its derivatives in the 1800's, by the First World War, they were lower, but still rather high by today's commercial norm.

I assume the figure of five times the hops used now takes account of hops today being pelletized. Also, we have to remember that pale ale, which was (as this record confirms) a stocked or stored beer, would have lost some bitterness at the end of the storage period - or shipping period on clippers to distant markets.

But anyway it seems fair to conclude from this article that the hops had a bigger punch 100 years ago.

In a sense, viewed historically and setting aside the craft brewing community, one might consider that a full circle has occurred. Ale in Britain originally had no hops - possibly other things were added to flavour it, but in general fresh ale would have lacked bitterness before the hop came in. Then it had its ascendancy, then that declined with the development of commercial brewing and its ability to render a stable product via refrigeration, pasteurization and other factors tending to microbiological stability. Really the hops era reached its apogee in the 1800's before modern science emerged. On the other hand, that era simply influenced tastes (ones I share) which have had a lingering influence, no pun intended, and the craft brewing community carries the the flag for those who prefer the old hop-pungent taste.

Gary

[cannondale]

I asked Graham Kendall, the current brewer of Keith's IPA, about these recipes in the context of modern brewing techniques. "As a brewer my job is to ensure that they get the same great tasting product that consumers appreciate time and time again," he answered. "I believe that the essential point is that beer lovers really aren't too hung up on the ingredients but rather the taste being what they expect."

Must say I agree, except I'd probably replace 'beer lovers' with 'keiths drinkers'.

[Derek]

Also, in that time it was common to blend old and new hops for the hop bill. Old hops lost bittering capacity with age, and therefore even, say, five pounds per barrel (36 gallons per barrel, true then as now I think) would not equate to 5 leaf pounds of hops today. You could probably knock off 25% for that factor.
Gary

Definitely a factor. Goldings & Fuggle both loose about 50% in 6 months (unsealed at room temperature).
http://www.brewingtechniques.com/librar ... aretz.html

Some old brewing logs have 4 or even 5 year old hops added!

They'd definitely still have a lot of flavour (though different due to oxidation), but not nearly the bitterness.

[Bytowner]

I asked Graham Kendall, the current brewer of Keith's IPA, about these recipes in the context of modern brewing techniques. "As a brewer my job is to ensure that they get the same great tasting product that consumers appreciate time and time again," he answered. "I believe that the essential point is that beer lovers really aren't too hung up on the ingredients but rather the taste being what they expect."

Feh, cause what the hell do ingredients have to do with the taste anyways?

[phirleh]

I asked Graham Kendall, the current brewer of Keith's IPA, about these recipes in the context of modern brewing techniques. "As a brewer my job is to ensure that they get the same great tasting product that consumers appreciate time and time again," he answered. "I believe that the essential point is that beer lovers really aren't too hung up on the ingredients but rather the taste being what they expect."

Feh, cause what the hell do ingredients have to do with the taste anyways?

"Those who like it, like it regardless"

[G.M. Gillman]

For further context, this is from the Fullers (of London, the renowned ale brewer) website apropos its London Pride:

"The four major ingredients of beer are water, malt, hops and yeast. An average daily brew of Fuller's flagship brand, London Pride, uses 750 barrels of water, 13 tons of malt, 242 lbs. of hops and 704 lbs. of yeast. All of this produces 640 barrels or 184,320 pints of London Pride. That's enough to give every spectator at a Wembley Cup Final three pints each. Possibly not a very good idea, but it does give you some idea of the scale the brewery works on!"

I get just under 2/5ths of a pound of hops per barrel, or about 6.5 ounces hops per barrel. (Math not my strong suit so any comments welcome if I am off).

Based on the article under discussion, if I am right that 1.25 pounds hops were used in pale ale in Canada (Keith's or other) in circa-1915, and if it is true that is 5 times what is used today here, then Canadian mass market ale today would use in the neighborhood of 4 ounces per barrel. So Fullers is using for London Pride half as much again, and factoring the quality of best English hops and their aroma quality, this makes sense to me.

Now, my assumptions may be off as a result of any modern use of pelletized hops (thus harder to compare to full flower hops) and/or greater alpha acid content of modern hops. I have assumed too that a Canadian and English barrel are both 36 gallons, not sure if that is right.

Any way you look at it though, the circa-1915 pale ales in Canada and Britain, based on the Pinney article and other things I have read, seem rather more hoppy than today's and the 1800's versions even more so. What today would compare? Hard to say. Some of the Dogfish Head beers might qualify as either 1915-era bitter ale or even mid-1800's.

Personally, I like well-hopped beer. A long intense bitterness complements and balances the malty sweetness of beer. I would say in general - there are welcome exceptions - even our craft beers (never mind the mass market) could be more hoppy than they are, sometimes twice as much.

Gary

[Bobbyok]

Well so much for that - via email:

The Dal Archives have sealed all the Keith's and Oland's recipes and any other pertinent related info as of last week.

Labatt says they were only property of Bruce Oland until he sold the company to Labatt in 1971 and therefore weren't his to donate. Labatt is really taking this seriously.

[markaberrant]

Well so much for that - via email:

The Dal Archives have sealed all the Keith's and Oland's recipes and any other pertinent related info as of last week.

Labatt says they were only property of Bruce Oland until he sold the company to Labatt in 1971 and therefore weren't his to donate. Labatt is really taking this seriously.

For some reason, I find this awesome.

Also, I was recently provided some very reliable data on the current Keith's IPA, and with a bit of math, I was able to determine that it has a maximum of 15 IBUs, likely somewhere in the 12-15 range. If I took a hydrometer reading of Keiths to get the exact FG, I would be able to get a more precise number, but that would mean having to buy Keiths.

[Pub Style]

Craig's article is still up on The Coast's website, though he feels it may be deleted shortly, something he indicated in an email earlier today.

http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/beer-doc ... id=1557947 Better read it and print it off now before its gone too.

[Cass]

Well then, here it is for posterity:

Beer, documented

Craig Pinhey digs through the records and discovers that Keith’s Ale was once brewed with no corn and five times the hops.

by Craig Pinhey

[Editor's note: A shorter version of this article appears in the paper version of The Coast. Here, Craig Pinhey goes into more detail about the beer recipes he examined.]

A treasure trove of local beer history is now on tap at the Dalhousie Archives.

When Halifax businessman Bruce Oland died last year at age 91, he donated records from Oland and Son, the company that once owned both Keith's and Oland breweries, to Dal. The collection is extensive---there's everything from beer labels and boxes, correspondence, financial records, lab analyses and Brew Books, which are essentially the day-to-day recording of how the beer was made.

The materials are surprisingly revealing---at least to those of us used to KGB-level security on mainstream beer recipes---regarding how iconic brands like Alexander Keith's IPA, Stag's Head Stout and Oland Export Ale were brewed in the days before today's modern quality control standards were in place, when technology was less a part of the brewing process.

You can peruse the Brew Book from 1913-1915, then, after a notable gap, all the books from April 1, 1941 through to April 1, 1971. That last date is the year Oland and Son Limited sold its brewing assets to John Labatt Limited---for a cool $12 million.

For those who love Keith's, Oland and Schooner and don't care about ingredients and history, the Brew Books are just a bunch of numbers and words, but to serious homebrewers and beer historians they are proof positive that, well, they just don't brew 'em like they used to.
One could spend days digesting all these materials, but the most interesting to beer lovers are the Brew Books, which are easy to flip through. The 1913-15 book has brewer's records for a cryptically named "Stock" brewed on June 16th, 1914 with 5500 lbs of "Can Malt" (let's assume this is Canadian Malt) and 180 lbs of hops.

They also brewed a beer called "Larger," assumed to be Lager, misspelled. The malt and hop ratio was virtually identical. There is no record of anything but malt being used for the source of sugar, and thus alcohol, in these pre-prohibition brews. It’s common practice today for mainstream breweries to use corn or rice, in the form of syrups or flakes.

Jumping ahead to the next available records, in the April 1, 1941 to March 31, 1942 Brew Book from A. Keith & Son, the ingredients are listed for an "Ale" (Keith's, one must assume) brewed on April 3, 1941, using 9000 lbs of malt and 160 lbs of hops. Still no corn.

A "Lager" brewed the next day had 8100 lbs of malt and 128 lbs of hops: a lower ratio than for the ale, so likely a milder hop bitterness and flavour.

Corn entered the picture somewhere in the next 20 years. A peek at an "Ale" in January of 1960 shows 7500 lbs of malt, 600 lbs of "flakes" (corn) and a mere 65 lbs of hops. A day earlier, the "Lager" was brewed with 6100 lbs of malt, 1400 lbs of flakes, and only 55 lbs of hops. Move ahead to the last Brew Book in 1970-71, and the "Ale" is brewed with 7300 lbs of malt and 1400 lbs of syrup. This must be corn syrup, an alternative to flakes. The hops are down to 56 lbs.

The hops to "sugar source" for an "Ale" dropped from around 3.3 percent in 1914 down to 0.6 percent in 1970. (see this chart.) That is oversimplifying matters, of course, because one needs to know how bitter the hops were, and how they were used, but any brewer worth his Burton Salts can look at these books and see that the beers have changed radically.

I asked Graham Kendall, the current brewer of Keith's IPA, about these recipes in the context of modern brewing techniques. "As a brewer my job is to ensure that they get the same great tasting product that consumers appreciate time and time again," he answered. "I believe that the essential point is that beer lovers really aren't too hung up on the ingredients but rather the taste being what they expect."

But whether or not you care if Keith's used to be brewed with no corn and five times the hops, this archive is an informative look into Halifax brewing history.

Keith’s and Oland
A.Keith and Son Limited was established in 1820 in a house on Argyle Street, then moved to a larger facility on Lower Water Street in 1822. The Hollis Street brewery was built in 1836, followed by Keith Hall in 1863 on Lower Water Street, which served as Keith’s private residence. Keith, a mayor of Halifax, died in 1873. Starting in 1927, Oland and Son Limited gradually acquired A. Keith and Son, and established their business headquarters in Keith Hall. Oland continued to brew Keith’s products until the company was bought by Labatt’s in 1971. The Oland history also has a New Brunswick chapter, ending in Moosehead, but that is another story.

[sprague11]

But whether or not you care if Keith's used to be brewed with no corn and five times the hops, this archive is an informative look into Halifax brewing history.

Surprise Surprise.