Bottled Stouts in 1913

When searching for early references to Dark Mild, one I stumbled upon was in a massive catalogue from William Whiteley Ltd., published in 1913.  They billed themselves as "universal providers" and it's no exaggeration.

Bed linen, external blinds, marquees, saddles, furniture handles, mangles, hammers, dog collars, revolvers, model trains, cameras, Russian flags, salad dressing, ham, mushroom spawn, monkeys, coal and beer. In fact, if you want to know the price of just about anything in 1913, this is the place to look. The two volumes run over 1200 pages.

Obviously the beer bit interests me most. Quite a lot of beers are included, mostly draught, but also quite a few bottles.

There's this little notice at the start of the beer section to remind you of the idiocy of UK licensing laws:

"SPECIAL NOTICE.
Under the conditions of our Licence we cannot supply leas than 3 dozen Imperial Pints; 4 dozen Reputed Pints; 6 dozen Imperial Half-Pints of Bottled Ales and Stout. 2 dozen Reputed Quarts; 4 dozen Reputed Pints of Cyder.
Quantities can be made up, assorted, to suit our Customers' requirements."

While in the revolver section there are no restrictions on sales.

It also claims: "Any Ale or Stout not quoted in these Lists can be procured at short notice." I'm not sure that's 100% true. I'm betting that they couldn't have got hold of the beer from a tint brewery in rural Scotland.

The bottled Stouts they had as regular offerings were mostly from the London area, with the exception of Usher, Allsopp and Guinness. They mostly look pretty weak, based on the price.

I've assumed that Whitbread Copper is their Porter, and Stout is London Stout.  And that seems to tally with their strength. Draught Porter was 2d per pint and bottled beer sold at a premium. So 2s 6d a dozen (2.5d per pint) is about the cheapest you'd ever expect to see a beer described "Stout".

Guinness is probably the strongest beer in the list. And that wasn't super-strong for a Stout. There  were much stronger ones. For example, Whitbread SS and SSS were 1086º and 1095º, respectively. At just 2d per pint, Whiteley's own brand Brown Stout must have been under 1050º.

Not sure why the Guinness bottled by M.H. Foster was more expensive. They must be the same beer, as Guinness only made Extra Stout and the export version Foreign Extra Stout.

Bottled Stouts in 1913
Brewery	Place	beer	price (per doz) Imperial pint	OG
Whiteley	London	Whiteley’s London Brown Stout	2s
Whiteley	London	Whiteley’s Nourishing Stout (specially selected)	2s 6d
Whitbread	London	Whitbread's Cooper	2s 4d	1053
Whitbread	London	Whitbread's Stout	2s 6d	1054
Usher	Devizes	Usher’s Court Luncheon Stout	2s 6d
Usher	Devizes	Usher's Oatmeal Stout	2s 6d
Watney, Combe, Reid	London	Reid's Stout	3s 6d
Watney, Combe, Reid	London	Reid's Invalid Stout	3s
Watney, Combe, Reid	London	Reid’s Family Stout	2s 6d
Sedgwick	Watford	Sedgwick's Stout	2s 6d
Fremlin	Maidstone	Fremlin’s Stout, Elephant Brand	2s 6d
Fremlin	Maidstone	Fremlin’s Oatmeal Stout	2s 6d
Allsopp	Burton	Allsopp’s Luncheon Stout	2s 6d
Waltham	London	Waltham’s Brown Stout	2s 6d
Waltham	London	Waltham's S. N. Stout	3s
Allsopp	Burton	Allsopp's Special Stout	3s 3d
Raggett	London	Raggett's Nourishing Stout	4s
Guinness	Dublin	Guinness’s Extra Double Stout	3s 4d	1074
Guinness	Dublin	Guinness’s Extra Stout (bottled M. H. Foster & Sons)	4s	1074
Sources:
William Whiteley General Price List October, 1913, Volume 2, page 1196.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/107.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.