Coronation Beers (part six)

I was a bit too hasty in saying that I was done with Coronation Beers. I’ve since stumbled on a few more analyses.

I thought I’d found a ridiculously small number of them. It was only when searching my spreadsheet for King’s Ale that I remembered lots didn’t have the word “coronation” in their name, but some other royal-sounding term. So I made a few more searches. Ones dated 1953 were a bit of a giveaway.

I’ve split the table in two because the beers fall into two very obvious categories: Strong Ales and Stout. That the latter existed tells us something about how British beer culture has changed since the 1950’s. I can’t recall any of the more recent royal commemorative brews being Stouts. The style just wasn’t popular enough after the 1950’s.

Beasley’s Coronation Ale is an outlier. Way weaker than any of the other non-Stouts. Though it too was dark brown like the Strong Ale examples. Well, most of them. Rose’s King’s Ale is a dark amber rather than brown.

Remember how Starkey, Knight and Ford offered an off-the-peg Coronation Beer for other brewers? Offering to ship it in bulk, or even bottle it with the customer’s label. I can’t help wondering if any of the beers in the table were brewed by them. Not the Websters one. We’ve already learned about how that was brewed and why it was called Old Brown. The Raggetts and Masseys versions look remarkably similar to each other. Despite one brewery being in Kent and the other in Lancashire.

Then again, most of the beers look pretty similar: dark brown, 6.5-7% ABV. Though there is a quite a degree of variation in the rate of attenuation.

What else can I say? Bugger all, except that, despite the price, drinkers must have been glad to get a beer with a bit of poke again. I would have been.

Table. End.

Coronation Beers 1953
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	OG	FG	colour	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1953	Beasley	Coronation Ale	28	1043.1	1008.6	21 + 40	4.49	80.05%
1953	Raggetts	Kings Ale	48	1065.1	1010.4	43 + 40	7.17	84.02%
1953	Masseys	Kings Ale	37.5	1065.5	1010.8	23 + 40	7.16	83.51%
1953	Rose	Kings Ale	45	1070.3	1014.3	39	7.32	79.66%
1953	Catterall & Swarbrick	Royal Ale	48	1070.4	1021.4	1 + 40	6.37	69.60%
1959	Websters	Old Brown	46.5	1071.4	1023.1	110	6.27	67.65%
1953	Tollemache	Tolly Royal	48	1073.3	1023.6	17 + 40	6.45	67.80%
1953	Taylor Walker	Coronation Ale	48	1075.1	1029.5	4 + 40	5.89	60.72%
1953	McMullen	Coronation Ale	63	1089.1	1034.7	21 + 40	7.04	61.05%
	Average		45.8	1069.3	1019.6		6.46	72.67%
1953	Camerons	Sovereign Stout	26	1044.3	1009.6	1R + 17B	4.51	78.33%
1953	John Joule	Royal Stout	28	1046.3	1018.2	1 + 16	3.63	60.69%
1953	Camerons	Sovereign Stout	28	1047.3	1018.6	1 + 15	3.70	60.68%
	Average		27.3	1046.0	1015.5		3.95	66.57%
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.