Lees beers in 1939

You may have started noticing a theme here. Regional brewers, in general, brewed a much narrower range of beer than the large London establishments. Barclay Perkins made at least a dozen different beers – even more if you include their Lagers – and Whitbread ten. On the other hand, Boddington and Adnams both had a range of just four beers.

Lees were even more extreme, brewing about the absolute minimum: Mild and Bitter. Though I’m sure on paper they had more beers on offer. A form of the Mild, I would guess, was sold as Brown Ale. I’m not so surprised at the lack of a Strong Ale, but it is odd that there’s no Stout.

Funnily enough, after the war Lees brewed a wider range of beers, making both a Strong Ale and a Stout.

Both Lees beers had been around for quite a while, appearing in the oldest brewing record the brewery has preserved, from 1884. Unsurprisingly, both survived the war, albeit at much reduced gravities.

As at Boddington, there’s a quite a big difference in strength between the Bitter and Mild. With the former being a 7d per pint beer and the latter a 5d beer. The Mild and Bitter are very similar in OG to the equivalent Boddington beers.

There is a big difference I  the bitterness levels between Lees and Boddington. With Boddington’s Mild more bitter than Lees Bitter. That’s slightly surprising as usually beers intended for the same market were roughly similar.

Lees beers in 1939
Date	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	IBU (calcu-lated)
21st Feb	K	Mild	1035	1005	3.97	85.71%	6.87	1.04	20
2nd Mar	B	Pale Ale	1047	1010	4.89	78.72%	7.28	1.50	30
Source:
Lees brewing records held at the brewery