Thursday 30 July 2020

Newcastle Breweries medal winners in 1928

Thanks to Adrian Tierney Jones's handy book "Brewing Champions" on the history of the International Brewing awards, I know which medals Newcastle Breweries won in 1928.

These ones:

Class IV (mild ale with an original gravity of 1039-1046°)
Class VII (light bitter with an original gravity under 1039°)
Bottled Non-deposit Beers Class XIII (beer with an original gravity of 1033-1039°)
Bottled Non-deposit Beers Class XV (beer with an original gravity of 1046-1060°)

Plus:

The Champion Gold Medal for beers with an original gravity of 1039° and under was awarded to Newcastle Breweries, Newcastle upon Tyne.
The Brewers’ Journal Challenge Cup was awarded to Newcastle Breweries, Newcastle upon Tyne.

I'm pretty sure I know which beers they were, too:

Newcastle Breweries medal-winning beers?
Year Beer Style Price per pint (d) OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation
1925 Pale Ale Pale Ale 6.5 1038.5 1006.4 4.18 83.38%
1928 Brown Ale Brown Ale 9 1060.1 1012.5 6.21 79.20%
1931 Mild Ale Mild   1040.5 1013.5 3.49 66.67%
Source:
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TU/6/11.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.

I'm guessing that the Pale Ale which won class XIII was the bottled version of the class VII winner. Newcastle Brown obviously won class XV.

There were 19 classes in all, with 3 medals for each class. Making 57 medals in total. Winning four medals does seem very impressive. Until you realise that two other brewers matched them:

George Gale, Horndean, Hampshire
Nicholson & Sons, Maidenhead

And a further two won three medals:

Tamplin & Sons Brewery, Phoenix Brewery, Brighton
G Vallance, Sidmouth, Devon

I may post on the classes used by the competition, if anyone is interested.

1 comment:

Yann said...

Sure, the history of beer competition classes (dare I say "styles"? Maybe I shouldn't...) might well give an interesting perspective.