William Younger beer for Hong Kong

I often come across special versions of beers. Ones made for specific export markets. Things like Company Porter, brewed for the East India Company. Or the Crimea Porter, brewed for British troops fighting in Crimea.

I'm currently ferreting away in William Younger's brewing records. Ones I photographed in 2009. I know, it's taken me a stupidly long time to get around to them. I've got good reasons for that. I tend to concentrate on transcribing records that fit in with the books I'm working on. Which makes sense, given the limited number of hours in a day.

And the William Younger records are a specific case. Being in what I call Scottish format, there are multiple brews over a two-page spread. Also, because Younger brewed lots of different beers and I didn't understand the records too well, I took loads of pictures. As a result, for the log I'm currently transcribing, WY/6/1/2/45, I have around 200 beers. Which take a long time to go through.

Being a bit OCD, rather than skipping through the photos, picking out examples of each beer, I'm transcribing every single one. In the past, I did skip, simply to save time. And I'm glad that I did go through this particular brewing record more exhaustively. Because I've found a couple of beers I missed. One of which is particularly interesting: A beer brewed for export to Hong Kong.

My, that was a long-winded introduction. That's almost my whole day's supply of words used up. Let's get on with the supposed topic.

Scrolling through my spreadsheet, I noticed that there was another beer brewed for export to Hong Kong. A rather odd one.

SE (Special Export?) is exactly the sort of beer I would expect to be exported to the Far East. A fill-strength, heavily-hopped Pale Ale. While Special S1 is a lightly-hopped Sweet Stout. Not a type of beer that was usually exported. Younger's DBS, a more London-type of Stout, was more suitable for export.

Initially, Younger brewed quite normal-looking Stouts, MBS and DBS, reasonably attenuated and quite heavily hopped. In the 1870s, they introduced a new set of Stouts, S11, S2, S3, which were far more lightly hopped and very poorly attenuated, only around 50%. By the 1890s, these traits had become even more exaggerated. With many examples having no fresh hops at all, only spent ones from previous brews.

Special S1 at least doesn't have any pre-loved hops. It just doesn't have many hops. And it's dry-hopped, which domestic versions weren't.

Both of these beers were racked into 54-gallon hogsheads. Which is the type of cask beer was usually exported in. 

William Younger beer for Hong Kong
Date	Year	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	dry hops (oz / barrel)
14th Nov	1888	Special S1 HK	Stout	1077	1032	5.95	58.44%	3.38	1.23	5.30
10th Jan	1899	SE HK	Pale Ale	1064	1017	6.22	73.44%	14.48	3.93	11.21
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/34.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/45.