As well as the beer hack's dinner, I manged to squeeze in three visits to the London Metropolitan Archives, one to the City of Westminster Archives and take a look at Fuller's records again. Not bad in just four days. The 2,400 photos I took will take a while to process. Several years, most likely. But there a couple of things I can tell you now.I also attended the 10th anniversary tasting of the Fuller's Fine Ale Club. John Keeling gave an inspiring and entertaining talk on beer ageing. And rediscovering its secrets. Really top-class stuff. At no point was the furniture under any threat from my jaws.
Derek Prentice, former Truman's brewer now employed by Fuller's was there. I'd hoped he would be. I'd a stack of questions to ask him about Truman's beers. You know how much they confuse the hell out of me.
Beer codes. Deciphering them is one of my life's goals, however sad that might be. Derek gave me the solution to one: LK. It's short for London Keeper. Bitter to you and me. Now I think about it, it's pretty obvious. I really should have been able to work it out myself. Those two letters have pretty fixed meanings. L = London, K = Keeper or Keeping.
I had the meaning of more codes confirmed in the archives. In a fascinating document collecting all the circular letters sent out to Barclay Perkins publicans. Just look to your left.KK = Burton
KKKK = Old Burton
XLK = Bitter
Intriguingly, it also indicates A as standing for "Ale".
Those three different types of draught Lager are a bit of a surprise. And the fact they come in metric-sized barrels. The Co2 is presuambly for serving them.
AK. Found out something about that, too. That Whitbread briefly brewed one between the wars.
Much, much, much, much more to follow. More details than anyone but a total obsessive like me could possibly want to know. The exact quantities of each different beer brewed by Whitbread 1900 to 1940. Details of every batch brewed by Barclay Perkins in WW I. That's just for starters.
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2 comments:
That is very interesting about lager, Ron. I think most of us have read how American and Canadian soldiers in Britain couldn't accustom to the beer. Yet here we see some lager was made. I wonder if it was for this "foreign" market. Maybe pubs in Picadilly tended to sell it, for example. Perhaps the breweries would have made more had they been permitted to. At least, those with a lagering capability.
Gary
Gary, Barclay Perkins first brewed Lager (experimentally) during WW I. They really pushed it during the 1920's and 1930's, though they were never brewing huge amounts. I doubt it was very widely available on draught.
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