Hoare Porter 1870 - 1930

I realise that I've never paid that much attention to one of the great London Porter breweries: the Red Lion Brewery. It operated under several different names, but ended its days as Hoare & Co.

I think I understand some of the reasons why. First and foremost is that, unlike its 18th-century rivals Barclay Perkins, Whitbread and Truman, none of its brewing records survive. Fortunately, the brewery did hang around until the 1930's, which means I have details of plenty of their beers, courtesy of the Whitbread and Truman Gravity Books. Enough for several posts like this.

I'm going to start with the beer that made the Red Lion Brewery famous: Porter. It seems logical enough.

I'm lucky to have one analysis from the 19th-century. It looks pretty standard for that era: a gravity of 1050-something and about 75% attenuation.

Moving on to the 20th-century, I'm a bit surprised at how up and down the gravity is, ranging from 1031.9º to 1039.8º. Most Porter of the time were about in the middle of that, at 1034-37º.

For most of its life, Porter had about 75% attenuation. In the 18th century that was a pretty high rate of attenuation, better than most types of beer. It remained around that level through the 19th century, when other styles caught it up or even overtook it. That's why I'm shocked to see how poorly attenuated some of these samples are. Under 65% is lower than I would expect. In a couple of cases it looks like it's an attempt to compensate for a low OG.

Given the lowish degree of attenuation and modest gravity, it's only logical that the ABV hovers around the just about intoxicating level.

Hoare Porter 1870 - 1930
Year	Beer	Style	Price	size	package	Acidity	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1870	Porter	Porter	1.5d	pint	draught	0.18	1013	1052.42	5.23	75.22%
1922	Porter	Porter		pint	draught			1039.8
1922	Porter	Porter		pint	draught			1036
1922	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1009.7	1033.7	3.11	71.22%
1922	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1011	1037.3	3.41	70.51%
1922	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1010.5	1035	3.17	70.00%
1922	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1010.8	1033.8	2.98	68.05%
1923	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1010.2	1034.2	3.11	70.18%
1923	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1011.7	1033.2	2.78	64.76%
1923	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1011.6	1032.6	2.71	64.42%
1923	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1009.8	1034.5	3.20	71.59%
1923	Porter	Porter	6d	pint	draught		1008.4	1031.9	3.05	73.67%
1926	Porter	Porter	5d	pint	draught			1039.8
1928	Porter	Porter	5d	pint	draught		1013.4	1037.9	3.17	64.64%
1929	Porter	Porter		pint	draught			1038.3
1929	Porter	Porter		pint	draught			1038.2
1929	Porter	Porter	5d	pint	draught	0.06	1009.2	1038.3	3.78	75.98%
1929	Porter	Porter	5d	pint	draught	0.08	1009.6	1038.2	3.71	74.87%
1930	Porter	Porter	5d	pint	draught		1010.8	1035	3.13	69.14%
1930	Porter	Porter	5d	pint	draught		1009	1037	3.63	75.68%
1930	Porter	Porter	5d	pint	draught	0.07	1006.6	1034	3.56	80.59%
1930	Porter	Porter	5d	pint	draught		1010.2	1037	3.47	72.43%
Sources:
British Medical Journal June 25th 1870, page 658.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252

What Next? Stout, perhaps.