Random brewery price list - Simonds of Winchester

Ah, the stuff I find when looking for something else. Like this. A random brewery price list from the 1870's.

It's for an obscure brewery that closed long ago. pretty irrelevant, really, to the 21st century. Which is exactly why I find it so fascinating. I'm a contrary bastard.

First some background about the brewery. founded in 1812, traded as James Simonds 1847 - 1857, Simonds & Co. 1858 - 1893 and finally Winchester Brewery Co. Ltd. until it was bought by Marston in 1923. It had 108 pubs at the time of the takeover. It only brewed for another four years, but was used for bottling until 1969*.

Obscure enough for you?

Salisbury and Winchester Journal - Saturday 19 February 1870, page 4.

What's odd about that range of beers? Almost half of them are Porter or Stout. Which is a big proportion for a country brewery at that date. Also there's a high proportion of expensive beers - four costing 54 shillings a barrel.

It's an odd selection. There are only two X Ales when I'd have xpected at least three. This is also fairly early for a provincial brewery to be making IPA, unless it specialised in Pale Ales, which Simonds obviously didn't. I've no idea what M.B. XXX is. Mild Beer XXX, perhaps?

This is my guess of the gravities, based on Whitbread. The gravities may have been a little lower at Simonds:

Simonds of Winchester beers in 1870
	price per barrel	guess OG
Old Stock Ale	54	1080
X East India Pale Ale	54	1065
M.B. XXX	54	1080
Mild Ale XXX	48	1078
Mild Ale XX	36	1058
Treble Stout	54	1085
Double Stout	48	1078
Single Stout	42	1068
Porter	36	1058
Source:
Salisbury and Winchester Journal - Saturday 19 February 1870, page 4.

That's it. I told you this was pretty random.



* "A Century of British Brewers Plus" by Norman Barber, 205, page 50.