/- Explained

Heart of Lothian…our 90 /- Scottish ale is named after the City of Edinburgh in Scotland where I lived and studied brewing science. I’ve been explaining that the /- (or Shilling) nomenclature was related to the amount of tax a brewer paid on a barrel (its actually a Hogshead which is 54 Imperial gallons) of beer, and that a beer of around 5.5% abv would have been a 90 /- beer. Of course its a little more complicated than that and there are examples of brewers naming beers of a variety of different strengths with the same Shilling name. Its also complicated by the time in history you choose to base it on as taxes went up the appropriate name would logically change or the beer related to the name would be made weaker. Before the first world war all beers were stronger. It does seem however that 5.5% abv was the upper limit of beers called 90/- and that the beers 7% and up were Old Scotch Ale. For more information on Scottish historical brewing and breweries head over to Ron Pattison’s bloghttp://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/