Monday 9 June 2014

London vs provincial beer in the 1930's: Mild Ale

I just love the Journal of the Institute of Brewing. Especially the fact that it's all available online.

I've trawled through it a few times using different search terms. When I find a useful article, I save the pdf and extract the text. I've quite a pile of them, waiting for my attention. Including one on the food value of beer. Which I've finally got around to looking at.

Not that I'm all that interested in the food value of beer. But the article has loads of tables with data taken from beer analyses. And I'm a total tart for any type of beer analysis.

What makes them particularly handy is that there are separate tables of London and provincial beers of different types. Giving me a chance to check something I've seen mentioned but have never found real proof for: that London-brewed beers were stronger. I think originally it was because London brewers, being on the whole quite large, could brew more efficiently. As beer generally sold for the same price everywhere, there wasn't much competition on price. Brewers drew in drinkers by offering a stronger product.

I've combined two different tables from the article, plus added a calculated ABV. First, London Milds:

Composition of London Beers
Calories per pint.
Total Solids per cent. Absolute Alcohol (by weight) per cent. Ratio of Total Solids to Alcohol (T.S.=1). ABV Solid Matter. Alcohol. Total.
Mild Ales.
No. 1 4.35 3.16 1:0.72 4.01 102 126 228
No. 2 5.00 2.98 1:0.59 3.78 116 118 234
No. 3 3.87 3.41 1:0.88 4.33 90 136 226
No. 4 6.00 3.94 1:0.65 5.00 140 156 296
No. 5 4.91 3.08 1:0.62 3.91 114 121 235
No. 6 4.74 3.18 1:0.67 4.04 110 126 230
No. 7 5.17 2.90 1:0.56 3.68 120 115 235
No. 8 4.90 4.37 1:0.89 5.55 114 174 288
No. 9 4.62 2.98 1:0.64 3.78 108 118 220
Average 4.84 3.33 1:0.68 4.23 114 130 244
Source:
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 38, Issue 1, January-February 1932, pages 84 - 88.


That's odd. The average ABV is what I would expect for a London X Ale, a bit over 4% implying on OG of around 1043. But that average has been distorted by the two much stronger examples, Nos. 4 and 8. The relative large proportion of calories which comes from the solid matter implies a fair amount of unfermented material in the finished beer. You'll see better what I mean when I compare Bitter and Mild in a later post.

Now here are the country beers:

Composition of Country Beers
Calories per pint.
Total Solids per cent. Absolute Alcohol (by weight) per cent. Ratio of Total Solids to Alcohol (T.S.=1). ABV Solid Matter. Alcohol. Total.
Mild Ales.
No. 27 2.47 2.81 1:1.13 3.57 58 112 170
No. 28 4.40 3.83 1:0.87 4.86 103 152 255
No. 29 2.32 2.92 1:1.25 3.71 54 116 170
No. 30 2.69 3.61 1:1.34 4.58 63 143 200
No. 31 2.81 3.57 1:1.27 4.53 65 142 207
No. 32 3.29 3.06 1:0.03 3.89 77 121 198
No. 33 4.02 3.58 1:0.89 4.55 94 142 236
No. 34 4.54 2.92 1:0.64 3.71 106 116 222
No. 35 4.57 2.74 1:0.59 3.48 106 109 215
No. 36 6.58 3.58 1:0.54 4.55 153 142 295
No. 37 2.53 2.19 1:0.86 2.78 59 87 140
No. 38 3.24 2.70 1:0.83 3.43 75 107 182
No. 39 3.49 2.60 1:0.74 3.30 81 103 184
No. 40 4.76 2.00 1:0.60 2.54 111 115 220
No. 41 4.79 3.06 1:0.63 3.89 112 122 234
No. 42 5.74 4.15 1:0.72 5.27 133 165 298
No. 43 3.61 2.79 1:0.77 3.54 84 111 195
No. 44 3.28 2.93 1:0.89 3.72 76 116 192
No. 45 3.38 2.94 1:0.86 3.73 79 117 196
No. 46 2.49 2.54 1:1.02 3.23 58 101 159
No. 47 3.99 3.78 1:0.94 4.80 93 150 243
No. 48 2.72 2.81 1:1.03 3.57 63 112 175
No. 49 3.15 3.15 1:1.00 4.00 73 125 198
Average 3.69 3.09 1:0.83 3.92 86 123 209
Source:
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 38, Issue 1, January-February 1932, pages 84 - 88.

As you can see, the country-brewed Milds were indeed weaker. But I was surprised to see that to see that they were also more highly-attenuated. That becomes much clearer when you make a direct comparison of the averages:

Calories per pint.
Total Solids per cent. Absolute Alcohol (by weight) per cent. Ratio of Total Solids to Alcohol (T.S.=1). ABV Solid Matter. Alcohol. Total.
London 4.84 3.33 1:0.68 4.23 114 130 244
Country 3.69 3.09 1:0.83 3.92 86 123 209
% difference -31.17% -7.77% 0.25% -7.77% -32.56% -5.69% -16.75%

The country beers have less of everything: alcohol, unfermented material, calories.

One word of warning. There are at least two different types of Mild in the country beers. Ones around 3% ABV are 4d Ales, while those around 4% are X Ales. There aren't any of the former in the London examples, though such beers were brewed in London.

2 comments:

Phil said...

But, as you say yourself, the London average has been dragged up by those two strong examples. If you discard the >5%ers as outliers, you get averages of 3.87 (country) and 3.93 (London) - no difference to speak of.

The fact that there were two strong outliers out of 9 in London, vs one out of 23 in the 'country' samples, may be significant - on the other hand, 9 is a much smaller sample size than 23.

Shame you can only work with the figures you've got, isn't it.

J. Karanka said...

I've never been this excited to see a Hancock's label!