Today I've got some surprising numbers harvested from the Barclay Perkins archives. Fascinating stuff about the relative sales of each of their products.
Barclay Perkins output by beer 1956 | |||
Beer | style | barrels | % |
XX | Mild | 45,043 | 19.63% |
X | Mild | 2,598 | 1.13% |
DBA | Brown Ale | 37,603 | 16.38% |
PA FEST | Best Bitter | 1,018 | 0.44% |
PGA | 9,308 | 4.06% | |
PA (T) | Best Bitter | 23,608 | 10.29% |
XLK | Bitter | 13,562 | 5.91% |
IPA | IPA | 27,661 | 12.05% |
KKKK | Strong Ale | 872 | 0.38% |
KK (B) | Old Ale | 3,946 | 1.72% |
KK (T) | 2,715 | 1.18% | |
IBS EX | Russian Stout | 686 | 0.30% |
BBS EX | Export Stout | 77 | 0.03% |
LS | 14,327 | 6.24% | |
Lager | Lager | 46,486 | 20.25% |
Total | 229,510 | ||
Source: Document ACC/2305/1/675 held at the London Metropolitan Archives Note: year ending March 31st | |||
See what the big surprise is? The biggest seller is Lager, outselling even draught Mild. Brown Ale also makes an unexpectedly strong showing, only a little behind Mild. And the poor performance of XLK, long one of their mainstays, is a shock.
The total number of barrels brewed tells its own tale. Those 229,000 barrels look pretty sad compared with Barclay Perkins output in their glory years:
1810 235,100
1815 337,600
1850 397,360
1900 589,201
1914 582,263
That probably explains why they fell victim to a takeover: declining sales.
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5 comments:
Interesting that they should still call it IBS for Imperial Brown Stout when no one had made a pale stout for more than a century. And I'm assuming that KK (T) is the "trade" ie draught for pubs version, while KK (B) is the bottled version - with the same beer apparently known as Burton on draught and Old in bottles, confirming Campbell's statement that, in London, at least, Old and Burton were synonyms.
Zythophile, the two versions of KK were not identical. The bottling version was a good bit stronger.
The term Brown Stout lingered on a long time in London. Oddly, Holt's still have a beer called Brown Stout.
The term "Brown Stout" lived on for a while in the USA as well; when the Ballantine brewery in Newark NJ re-opened after prohibition under new ownership, it's new Scottish brewmaster added a "Brown Stout" to Ballantine's range. Like a couple of the brewery's other offerings, this one was brewed to a fairly hefty strength and was cellared in wooden tanks for a full year prior to bottling.
I'm assuming all the lager was bottled too. 1956 sounds a bit early for keg founts and cask-conditioned lager is surely a recent innovation in Britain.
One of the (India ale) Hodgson's in the 1800's was nicknamed Brown Stout, the gentleman who was a MP. (This may sound like apples and oranges but the beer consumer, then as now, was never very discriminating in the manner of beer terminology). The term came apparently from the scion's size and complexion.
Gary
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