Tuesday 22 July 2014

Barclay Perkins Porter quality 1922 - 1923

"Thank you, Ronald," I can hear you saying. "Thank you for continuing your series on draught beer quality in 1920's London.

We've now got as far as Porter. If I'm honest, the Porter analyses are the most revealing about what was happening in the London pub trade. It gives some clues as to both the state Porter and why it was in decline. You could call it the Mild Effect.

What's that? Let me explain. In the 1970's, Mild sales were falling. Dramatically falling in some regions. This decline kicked off a vicious circle. A low volume of sales, meant that it was often too old and in bad condition. Which deterred drinkers from buying, leading to even lower sales and even poorer beer quality. Eventually it wasn't worth the landlord's while to sell it any more.

The comments on flavour in the Whitbread Gravity Book tend to confirm this. To put it bluntly: there was a lot of crap Porter about in the 1920's. Why do I think poor sales were to blame? Because I can see the decline that Porter went into after WW I quite clearly in Whitbread's production figures by type.

Here's what happened with their Porter 1910 - 1929:

Output of Whitbread Porter 1910 - 1929
year barrels brewed Total Port Total Ale & Porter % of Porter/Stout % of total
1910 108,166 361,847 850,828 29.89% 12.71%
1911 101,934 368,953 907,173 27.63% 11.24%
1912 111,239 386,734 988,981 28.76% 11.25%
1913 127,838 378,629 901,807 33.76% 14.18%
1914 123,085 382,984 900,636 32.14% 13.67%
1915 65,216 314,169 762,438 20.76% 8.55%
1916 80,298 369,130 777,127 21.75% 10.33%
1917 8,493 286,163 578,502 2.97% 1.47%
1918 7,136 110,695 413,112 6.45% 1.73%
1919 21,602 117,284 565,624 18.42% 3.82%
1920 24,910 234,413 10.63%
1921 15,688 238,623 675,647 6.57% 2.32%
1922 16,562 192,717 576,118 8.59% 2.87%
1923 14,165 169,977 505,097 8.33% 2.80%
1924 15,948 178,192 551,616 8.95% 2.89%
1925 14,943 163,932 527,977 9.12% 2.83%
1926 13,511 168,513 512,528 8.02% 2.64%
1927 10,708 149,725 462,250 7.15% 2.32%
1928 10,105 142,153 488,357 7.11% 2.07%
1929 5,558 85,779 443,888 6.48% 1.25%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/075, LMA/4453/D/01/076, LMA/4453/D/01/077, LMA/4453/D/01/078, LMA/4453/D/01/079, LMA/4453/D/01/080, LMA/4453/D/01/081 LMA/4453/D/01/082, LMA/4453/D/01/083, LMA/4453/D/01/084, LMA/4453/D/01/085, LMA/4453/D/01/086, LMA/4453/D/01/087, LMA/4453/D/01/088, LMA/4453/D/01/089, LMA/4453/D/01/090, LMA/4453/D/01/091, LMA/4453/D/01/092, LMA/4453/D/01/093, LMA/4453/D/01/094, LMA/4453/D/01/095,
LMA/4453/D/09/104, LMA/4453/D/09/105, LMA/4453/D/09/106, LMA/4453/D/09/107, LMA/4453/D/09/108, LMA/4453/D/09/109, LMA/4453/D/09/110, LMA/4453/D/09/111, LMA/4453/D/09/112, LMA/4453/D/09/113, LMA/4453/D/09/114, LMA/4453/D/09/115, LMA/4453/D/09/116, LMA/4453/D/09/117, LMA/4453/D/09/118, LMA/4453/D/09/119, LMA/4453/D/09/120, LMA/4453/D/09/121, LMA/4453/D/09/122 and LMA/4453/D/09/123.

Whitbread's Porter was in surprisingly good health leading up to WW I, with sales increasing. The war put a stop to that and output of it almost dried up after 1916. It bounced back a little in 1920, then went into a steady decline.

It also seems that many Porter drinkers switched to Stout. During the war, often the Porter and Stout on offer in a pub were the same beer, the only difference being the price. After the war, standard draught Stout was similar in gravity to pre-war Porter, in the range 1052 - 1056. Switching to Stout is exactly what I would have done, if I had been able to afford it.

On with Barclay Perkins' Porter. Remember that they had been one of the great Porter breweries, and had brewed Porter for over 150 years. It's fairly typical in terms of gravity and ABV. Let's take a look at the details:

Barclay Perkins Porter quality 1922 - 1923
Year Beer FG OG ABV App. Atten-uation Flavour score Price
1922 Porter 1013.2 1040.2 3.49 67.16% Poor & thin -2 6d
1922 Porter 1011.5 1035.5 3.10 67.61% v fair 2 6d
1922 Porter 1010.5 1034.5 3.11 69.57% v poor -3 6d
1923 Porter 1012 1037.5 3.30 68.00% fair 1 6d
1923 Porter 1010.8 1035.8 3.24 69.83% fair 1 5d
1923 Porter 1012.5 1038 3.30 67.11% going off -2 6d
1923 Porter 1012.8 1039.8 3.49 67.84% moderate 1 6d
1923 Porter 1009.8 1038.8 3.76 74.74% v poor -3 6d
Average  1011.6 1037.5 3.35 68.98% -0.63
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

One thing I forgot to mention. For Porter and Stout there's no mention of clarity, presumably because of their dark colour. As you can see, the quality wasn't great. Only half get a positive score and only one of those scores higher than 1.

I can see why drinkers shunned Porter in the 1920's. It was often pretty crap. The lowered gravity wouldn't have helped. If only I had some similar information from before the war to confirm that its quality had declined. Oh well, you can't have everything.

2 comments:

Phil said...

What was the difference between porter and stout at this point - was it basically the original difference between 'porter' and 'stout porter' (i.e. strength), or was there more to it?

Ron Pattinson said...

Phil,

the Stout was stronger. Otherwise they were identical. Barclay Perkins parti-gyled their Porter and London Stout.