Cask conditioning in WW II

I'll admit it. I'm a bit of a mad collector when it comes to beer books. (I've just ordered another one: Ross Mackenzie's "A Standard Manual of Brewing and Malting and Laboratory Companion". Please don't tell Dolores.) Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to going through them properly.

Wallenstein Laboratory Communications. Great name for a publication. I stumbled across it when doing some web search or other. It looked like they contained interesting information, so I bought a couple. Most articles are very technical. Stuff about yeast and that sort of thing. At one time I would have found such material deathly dull. Now I'm frustrated by my lack of scientific education. If only I'd taken A-level chemistry. Then I might have understood the organic chemistry bits better.

As usual, I've wandered away from the primary thrust od this post. An article in Communications, published at the end of 1943 about brewing in wartime Britain. Beer in the two world wars is one of my specialist subjects. (And the subject of my subtly-named book "War!".) A lot of the topics covered in the article - like the use of flafed barley and oats - I already knew about. But I wouldn't be bothering you with any of this if I hadn't found much that was new to me. Expect a few more posts over the coming week. That's if I can find room between all Allsopp and Bass posts.

Cask conditioning was pretty much universal in 1940's Britain. Unlike the USA. The problem being, that when something is so common and everyday, people don't bother describing it in detail. They assume it's a waste of time explaining something everyone already knows. Fortunately, this article was written for an American audience. Hence the author relates details he wouldn't have if he'd had British readers in mind.

"Cask conditioning

In Great Britain cask conditioning is done as follows: After the primary fermentation is completed, the top yeast skimmed and most of the remainder has settled to the bottom, the beer is racked into casks containing just enough primary yeast in suspension to promote conditioning in cask; this varies from 0.2 to 2 million healthy cells per cc of beer. To induce quick conditioning and consumption of the beer as nearly as possible within a day or two of its attaining the optimum of condition, just the right concentration of yeast cells and fermentable sugar (whether priming be added for the latter purpose or not) should be present. The casks are maintained at about 55-60º F and rolled at intervals - or if in conditioning tanks the beer is roused - to keep the yeast in suspension. Later the beer is fined very shortly before drinking. Everything depends on the above conditions being controlled, and the beer delivered to the tied house a day or two before it is to be drunk.

The tied house in England, with good pre-war transport facilities available, developed a quick trade in draught beer, and the whole of the brewery was organized to produce and deliver twice per week. Nowadays deliveries are being restricted to once per week. This change has probably had more influence on the quality of the draught beer as consumed than all the technological problems discussed above. Medium and low, especially low-gravity beers, are perishable commodities and should be treated as such. A twice weekly delivery of milk would have alarming effects on a community which does not possess one refrigerator to a hundred working-class houses. The longer storage of the beer enforced in the public house is more often the cause of its deteriorated quality than was the case in peacetime; even in those days, it was here that the brewer most usually failed. Another effect of distribution difficulties has been the frequent practice of brewers who do a considerable trade in a distant town - distant by British standards — to enter into a reciprocal agreement with a firm in that town to supply beer to their consumers. We may take the case of brewery "A" which sells beer in the town in which brewery "B" is situated, while brewery "B" has a good trade in town"A". As a result of the agreement brewery "B" brews special beer to brewery "A's" prescription, as regards original gravity, hop rate, etc., and supplies it as brewery "A's" beer to the latter's licensed houses. Similarly brewery "A" performs the same service for brewery "B" in town "A." Amusing cases are reported such as that of a consumer in "B's" public house drinking what he thinks is "B's" brew and declaring how greatly superior it is to "A's" beer, when, in fact, "A" has made the beer. More often, however, when the beer supplied has been changed for the above reasons there is a notice exhibited stating so, and the consumer knows what he is getting."
"Wallenstein Laboratories Communications, December 1943, Volume VI, number 19" pages 158 - 159.

Priming. It was a key technique in the 20th century. Key to getting cask beer into condition and ready to drink as soon as possible. It seems to have been rather forgotten about, though I'm sure many breweries in Britain do still prime, especially the older ones.

By 1943, the war had put a dent in beer gravities. As you can see from these tables:

Whitbread beers in 1939
Date	Year	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	barrels	lbs hops	qtrs malt	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	colour
9th Aug	1939	MS	Stout	1051.0	1015.5	4.70	69.61%	6.94	1.41	290	930	134	1.25	1.42	19 brown 1 red
10th Aug	1939	P	Porter	1029.7	1007.5	2.94	74.75%	6.89	0.83	65	937	136	1.25	1.42	15 brown 1 red
10th Aug	1939	LS	Stout	1045.2	1013.5	4.19	70.13%	6.89	1.26	216	937	136	1.25	1.42	18 brown 1 red
10th Aug	1939	LOS	Stout	1045.2	1013.5	4.19	70.13%	6.89	1.26	190	937	136	1.25	1.42	18 brown 1 red
27th Sep	1939	PA	Pale Ale	1048.2	1012.0	4.79	75.10%	7.33	1.41	695	982	134	1.17	1.08	22
26th Sep	1939	IPA	IPA	1037.1	1008.0	3.85	78.44%	10.00	1.51	740	1120	112	1.5	1.75	18
26th Sep	1939	X	Mild	1033.9	1010.5	3.10	69.03%	8.27	1.11	809	897	108.5	1.25	1	17 + 40
25th Sep	1939	LA	Mild	1028.4	1009.0	2.57	68.31%	8.27	0.93	30	897	108.5	1.25	1	11 + 40
21st Sep	1939	DB	Brown Ale	1054.5	1018.0	4.83	66.97%	8.49	1.92	175	1146	135	1.25	1	16 + 40
21st Sep	1939	33	Strong Ale	1061.0	1020.0	5.42	67.21%	8.49	2.15	376	1146	135	1.25	1	18 + 40
Sources: Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives Documents: LMA/4453/D/01/107, LMA/_4453/D/09/126

Whitbread beers in 1943
Date	Year	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	barrels	lbs hops	qtrs malt	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	colour
1st Apr	1943	IPA	IPA	1031.2	1005.5	3.40	82.37%	8.53	1.13	818	921	108	1.25	1.25	20
3rd Apr	1943	PA	Pale Ale	1038.5	1009.5	3.84	75.32%	6.03	1.01	752	760	126	1.08	1.25	26
5th Apr	1943	XX	Mild	1027.8	1008.0	2.62	71.22%	6.07	0.76	1605	1220	201	1	1.25	15 + 40
24th Apr	1943	XXXX	Strong Ale	1043.8	1013.0	4.07	70.32%	6.70	1.25	292	365	54.5	1	0.75	17 + 40
4th Feb	1943	MS	Stout	1042.5	1014.0	3.77	67.06%	5.00	0.93	712	660	132	1	1.25	19 brown 1 red
9th Feb	1943	LS	Stout	1039.8	1012.0	3.68	69.85%	6.52	1.13	379	860	132	1	0.75	16.5 brown 1 red
9th Feb	1943	LOS	Stout	1039.8	1012.0	3.68	69.85%	6.52	1.13	379	860	132	1	0.75	16.5 brown 1 red
Sources: Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives Documents: LMA/4453/D/01/110, LMA/_4453/D/09/127

XX Mild had fallen below 1030. IPA, their biggest-selling bottled beer, was just above that mark. London Stout and PA (their standard Bitter) don't look that bad by modern standards at 1039. But that's between 7 and 9 points lower than four years earlier. And the gravity cuts were by no means over. Gravities finally hit their nadir in 1947, a couple of years after the ned of hostilities.

MS, in case you're wondering, is Mackeson.

Cask beer remains a product with a limited shelf life. Especially the low-gravity beers which still make up the majority of trade. You can see the sense of weekly deliveries from a fuel conservation point of view. I'd never considered delivery schedules as a possible threat to beer quality.

I love story about drinkers praising beer, not realising it came from a brewery they didn't like. The same phenomenon can be observed in blind tastings. Often drinkers will pick as their favourite a beer they thought they hated.