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.