This all started when I stumbled across a wine merchant's price list from 1932. This one:
It's like a roll call of Britain's most famous beers of the time. And what did it remind me of? The Whitbread Gravity Book. Because that's full of famous beers from the 1930's. A quick check of my mega gravity spreadsheet confirmed what I suspected: I'd got the gravity of most of the beers.
This where it gets really exciting: working out the relative cost of each. That is, the price per gravity point per dozen pints. The results are intriguing and not quite what I had expected in every case.
Brewery
|
Place
|
year
|
beer
|
OG
|
date OG
|
size
|
price per dozen (pence)
|
price
per gravity point (pence)
|
Truman
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Eagle Ale
|
1038
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
48
|
2.53
|
Truman
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Eagle Ale
|
1038
|
1932
|
pint
|
90
|
2.37
|
Truman
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Eagle Ale
|
1038
|
1932
|
quart
|
168
|
2.21
|
Flower's
|
Stratford
|
1932
|
Light
Bitter Ale
|
1041
|
1936
|
half
pint
|
48
|
2.34
|
Flower's
|
Stratford
|
1932
|
Light
Bitter Ale
|
1041
|
1936
|
pint
|
90
|
2.20
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1046.1
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
54
|
2.34
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1046.1
|
1932
|
pint
|
96
|
2.08
|
Mitchell
& Butler
|
Birmingham
|
1932
|
All
Bright Ale
|
1044
|
1932
|
pint
|
102
|
2.32
|
George
|
Bristol
|
1932
|
Home
Brewed Ale
|
1055.6
|
1936
|
quart
|
204
|
1.83
|
Worthington
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1055.4
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.60
|
Worthington
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1055.4
|
1933
|
pint
|
132
|
2.38
|
Bass
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1054.7
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.63
|
Bass
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1054.7
|
1932
|
pint
|
132
|
2.41
|
William
Younger
|
Edinburgh
|
1932
|
Scotch
Ale
|
1051.5
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
78
|
3.03
|
Wrexham
|
Wrexham
|
1932
|
Welsh
Lager Beer
|
half
pint
|
72
|
|||
Tennent
|
Glasgow
|
1932
|
Lager
Beer
|
1043.1
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
72
|
3.34
|
Tennent
|
Glasgow
|
1932
|
Lager
Beer
|
1043.1
|
1933
|
pint
|
138
|
3.20
|
Barclay
Perkins
|
London
|
1932
|
Lager
Beer
|
1049.4
|
1934
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.91
|
Alloa
Brewery
|
Alloa
|
1932
|
Graham's
Golden Lager Beer
|
1044.5
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
72
|
3.24
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1932
|
London
Stout
|
1044.3
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
66
|
2.98
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1932
|
London
Stout
|
1044.3
|
1932
|
pint
|
114
|
2.57
|
Raggett
|
London
|
1932
|
Nourishing
Stout
|
1056.3
|
1935
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.56
|
Raggett
|
London
|
1932
|
Nourishing
Stout
|
1056.3
|
1935
|
pint
|
132
|
2.34
|
Simmond
|
Reading
|
1932
|
Milk
Stout
|
1049
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.94
|
Simmond
|
Reading
|
1932
|
Milk
Stout
|
1049
|
1933
|
pint
|
132
|
2.69
|
Guinness
|
Dublin
|
1932
|
Extra
Stout
|
1055.2
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
66
|
2.39
|
Guinness
|
Dublin
|
1932
|
Extra
Stout
|
1055.2
|
1933
|
pint
|
126
|
2.28
|
Sources:
|
||||||||
Whitbread
Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number
LMA/4453/D/02/001
|
||||||||
Whitbread
brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers
LMA/4453/D/01/098 and LMA/4453/D/01/099
|
||||||||
Barclay
Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document
number ACC/2305/1/641
|
||||||||
Cheltenham
Chronicle - Saturday 18 June 1932, page 1.
|
Here, for clarity's sake, are just the half pints, sorted in descending order of price:
Brewery
|
Place
|
year
|
beer
|
OG
|
date OG
|
size
|
price per dozen (pence)
|
price
per gravity point (pence)
|
Tennent
|
Glasgow
|
1932
|
Lager
Beer
|
1043.1
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
72
|
3.34
|
Alloa
Brewery
|
Alloa
|
1932
|
Graham's
Golden Lager Beer
|
1044.5
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
72
|
3.24
|
William
Younger
|
Edinburgh
|
1932
|
Scotch
Ale
|
1051.5
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
78
|
3.03
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1932
|
London
Stout
|
1044.3
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
66
|
2.98
|
Simmond
|
Reading
|
1932
|
Milk
Stout
|
1049
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.94
|
Barclay
Perkins
|
London
|
1932
|
Lager
Beer
|
1049.4
|
1934
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.91
|
Bass
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1054.7
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.63
|
Worthington
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1055.4
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.60
|
Raggett
|
London
|
1932
|
Nourishing
Stout
|
1056.3
|
1935
|
half
pint
|
72
|
2.56
|
Truman
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale
Eagle Ale
|
1038
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
48
|
2.53
|
Guinness
|
Dublin
|
1932
|
Extra
Stout
|
1055.2
|
1933
|
half
pint
|
66
|
2.39
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1932
|
Pale
Ale
|
1046.1
|
1932
|
half
pint
|
54
|
2.34
|
Flower's
|
Stratford
|
1932
|
Light
Bitter Ale
|
1041
|
1936
|
half
pint
|
48
|
2.34
|
Sources:
|
||||||||
Whitbread
Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number
LMA/4453/D/02/001
|
||||||||
Whitbread
brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers
LMA/4453/D/01/098 and LMA/4453/D/01/099
|
||||||||
Barclay
Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document
number ACC/2305/1/641
|
||||||||
Cheltenham
Chronicle - Saturday 18 June 1932, page 1.
|
I wasn't surprised that the two most expensive beers were Lagers. They were marketing as premium beers and priced accordingly. What interested me more was that the top three were all Scottish, with Younger's No. 3 almost as expensive as the Lagers. I guess that must have been marketed as a premium beer, too. Come to think of it, I have come across dozens of adverts for it. (In case you're wondering how I know that the beer in the price list is No. 3, I've another price list where explicitly says Younger's No. 3 and the price is exactly the same. Plus Younger only marketed two beers as Scotch Ale: No. 1 and No. 3. The price is too cheap for it to possibly be No. 1.)
I hadn't expected Stouts to come in at numbers four and five. Especially not those types of Stout. Which brings me to the biggest shock: how relatively cheap Guinness was. Remarkably good value, in fact. I've no explanation. I would have expected it to be dearer than Whitbread's London Stout.
The Burton Pale Ales are nicely grouped together in the middle. I'm not surprised that Bass and Worthington had almost identical gravities and were the same price. I would have expected the weaker Truman Pale Ale to be cheaper.
Getting back to the price of Lager (it is the title, after all), let's see exactly how much more expensive it was in percentage terms. I make Tennent's and Graham's Lagers 27% more expensive than Bass Pale Ale and a whopping 43% more expensive than Whitnbread Pale Ale. If we look at cheaper beers, the difference is even bigger - almost double the price of Whitbread's draught X Ale.
Draught
Beers
|
||||||||
Brewery
|
Place
|
year
|
beer
|
OG
|
date OG
|
size
|
price per dozen (pence)
|
price
per gravity point (pence)
|
Guinness
|
Dublin
|
1933
|
Extra
Stout
|
1054.6
|
1933
|
pint
|
11
|
2.42
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1932
|
Pale Ale
|
1045.3
|
1932
|
pint
|
8
|
2.12
|
Truman
|
Burton
|
1932
|
Pale Ale
|
1045.5
|
1932
|
pint
|
8
|
2.11
|
Flower
|
Stratford
|
1935
|
Pale Ale
|
1047.2
|
1935
|
pint
|
8
|
2.03
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1933
|
Stout
|
1047.8
|
1933
|
pint
|
8
|
2.01
|
Worthington
|
Burton
|
1936
|
Pale Ale
|
1046.9
|
1936
|
pint
|
7
|
1.79
|
Whitbread
|
London
|
1933
|
X
|
1034.9
|
1933
|
pint
|
5
|
1.72
|
Sources:
|
||||||||
Whitbread
Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number
LMA/4453/D/02/001
|
The moral of all this? Drink Mild not Lager!
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