Thursday 5 June 2014

Truman Brick Lane gravities 1925 - 1933

As promised, I'm now taking a look at Truman's beers themselves. Based on information in document B/THB/C/256c.

This wasn't Truman's full beer range. Their brewery in Burton provided all of the posher Pale Ales and Burton Ales, including Barley Wine.

The Pale Ales they brewed in London, LK (London Keeper) and BLK (its bottled form), were really more like Light Ales.

In 1925, their range was this, in terms of styles:

2 Pale Ales
2 Mild Ales
1 Strong Ale
1 Porter
5 Stouts

What's odd about that? Do you remember the breakdown of Truman output by Ales and Stouts? In 1925, just 28% of Brick Lane's output was Stout. Yet there were more different types of Ale brewed than Stout. The inevitable conclusion is that some of the Stouts must have been brewed in pretty small quantities.

In 1933 just under 44,000 barrels of Stout were brewed, but there were seven different types. Meaning, on average, a bit over 6,000 barrels were brewed of each type. While in the same year 240,000 barrels were brewed of 9 types of Ale, an average of over 26,000 barrels of each type.

You can clearly see the fault line of Snowden's 1931 emergency budget again. The gravity of every beer in the range fell between 1931 and 1932. Except for those which were discontinued or appeared in that year.

Notable changes are the replacement of X by the weaker LM (though X did reappear the following year). Considering X was probably their biggest-selling beer, that's quite a significant move. A weaker Brown Ale was introduced, one that's obviously a bottled version of the weak Mild A. The name, NBA, stands for Nut Brown Ale. Sp. A looks like another draught variation of A, quite possibly coloured differently at racking time. Barclay Perkins introduced a very dark version of their Ale around this time.

Over on the Stout side, Stout was split into two differently-priced versions and the two versions of CS replaced by a single, weaker one.

What else have I learned? That Truman started brewing a Brown Ale in 1926. And that it was stronger than their strongest Mild Ale. Though I do know that it was parti-gyled with it. How do I know that? From another dead handy document. One that we'll be looking at soon.


Truman Brick Lane gravities 1925 - 1933
Beer Style 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933
BLK Pale Ale 1040.0 1040.0 1040.0 1039.8 1039.8 1039.8 1039.8 1036.4 1036.4
LK Pale Ale 1029.2 1029.2 1029.2 1029.3 1029.3 1029.1 1029.2 1028.4 1028.4
SA Strong Ale 1056.2 1055.8 1055.8 1055.9 1055.7 1055.7 1055.6 1049.2 1047.5
X Mild 1043.0 1043.1 1043.0 1042.9 1042.8 1042.7 1042.9 1039.5
LM Mild 1034.8 1034.8
BA Brown Ale
1044.6 1044.8 1044.8 1044.7 1044.7 1044.8 1041.7 1041.7
A Mild 1029.4 1029.4 1029.4 1029.5 1029.4 1029.5 1029.6 1028.4 1028.4
Sp. A Mild 1028.4 1028.4
NBA Brown Ale 1028.4 1028.4
Stock IDS Stout 1083.7 1083.6 1095.4
BS Stout 1058.4 1058.5 1058.3 1058.4 1058.7 1058.8 1059.0 1053.7 1053.7
St. Stout 1050.1 1050.2 1050.2 1050.2 1050.3 1050.1 1050.5
St. 8d Stout 1047.8 1047.8
St. 7d Stout 1040.9 1040.9
CS Town Stout 1044.8 1047.1 1046.7 1046.3 1048.5 1049.1 1049.0
CS Country Stout 1044.3 1045.4 1045.3 1045.3
CS B 1038.9 1038.9
R Porter 1037.4 1037.5 1037.5 1037.4 1037.2 1037.2 1037.1 1035.3 1035.3
SS Stout 1054.5 1054.7 1054.6 1054.4 1054.5 1054.8 1054.8 1050.3 1050.3
Scotch St. Stout 1058.4
RDS Stout 1044.5
Source:
Document B/THB/C/256c held at the London Metropolitan Archives

No comments: