Northern bottled Pale Ale after WW II

Bitter had kicked off the war generally weaker in the rest of England than in London. But, just like WW I, WW II tended to iron out regional differences.

I’ve so much data for the post-war period that this section is going to be vert table-heavy. Though it is mostly for bottled Pale Ales rather than draught ones. Which is a bit of a shame. But it reflects who was responsible for collecting the samples: Whitbread. While they sampled plenty of draught Pale Ales from London and its environs, from breweries further away they mostly only analysed bottled beers.

These examples are a bit stronger than those from London. There’a a simple explanation: they’re from a few years later when gravities had bounced back a little. The average of 1036.4º is very close to overall average OG, which was around 1037º for the whole of the 1950s.

As in London, the rate of attenuation is high, averaging over 80%.

Some stronger Pale Ales were brewed in the North, too:

Northern strong bottled Pale Ale after WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1955	Hewitt Bros.	Pale Ale	23	1040.8	1008.4	4.21	79.41%	28
1953	Westoe	Export	30	1042.2	1008.3	4.41	80.33%	23
1953	Duttons	Special	28	1045	1007.2	4.93	84.00%	28
1953	Vaux	Special Export Pale Ale	30	1046.9	1010.4	4.75	77.83%	30
1951	John Smith	Magnet Ale	26	1047.1	1011.5	4.62	75.58%	24
1948	Duncan Gilmour	Export Quality Golden PA		1053.1	1011.8	5.38	77.78%	21
1951	John Smith	Pale Ale		1059.4	1016.9	5.52	71.55%	22
	Average		27.4	1047.8	1010.6	4.8	78.07%	25.1
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

A couple would have been considered pretty strong even before WW II. I suspect that the John Smith beer was for export. I know that they shipped beer to Belgium and the lack of a price was often a sign of a beer which wasn’t sold in the UK.

Northern bottled Pale Ale after WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1955	Samuel Smith	Taddy Ale	22	1032.6	1007.2	3.30	77.91%	23
1955	Catterall & Swarbrick	XL Pale Ale	22	1034.1	1005.1	3.77	85.04%	19
1955	Moors & Robson	Pale Ale	16	1034.1	1007.3	3.48	78.59%	14
1950	T Taylor	Special Pale Ale	28	1034.7	1008.3	3.42	76.08%	24
1955	Thwaites	Pale Ale	27	1034.7	1005.5	3.80	84.15%	17
1955	Hydes	Pale Ale	21	1034.9	1004	4.03	88.54%	23
1955	Newcastle Breweries	Amber Ale	20	1034.9	1007.5	3.56	78.51%	30
1951	Peter Walker	SB Ale	19	1035.1	1005.7	3.82	83.76%	28
1955	Tennant Bros.	Lion Pale Ale	27	1036.6	1009.9	3.46	72.95%	23
1955	Tetley	Bitter	25	1037.1	1004	4.32	89.22%	23
1955	Birkenhead Brewery	India Pale Ale	21	1037.2	1007.2	3.90	80.65%	21
1955	Threlfalls	Blue Label	22	1037.4	1008	3.82	78.61%	19
1948	Carlisle State Brewery	Pale Ale	20	1037.5	1006.5	4.03	82.67%	17.5
1955	Hey & Son	Gold Cup Ale	25	1037.6	1006.6	4.03	82.45%	19
1955	Moors & Robson	Red Cap Bitter Beer	20	1038.1	1008.1	3.90	78.74%	15
1951	Peter Walker	Pale Ale	21	1038.5	1007.3	4.06	81.04%	24
1953	Duttons	DPA Pale Ale	24	1038.9	1005.2	4.39	86.63%	20
1955	Greenall Whitley	Pale Ale	22	1039.1	1008.1	4.03	79.28%	20
1950	Tennant Bros.	Pale Ale		1039.4	1012.2	3.52	69.04%	27
	Average		22.3	1036.4	1007.0	3.82	80.73%	21.6
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.