Friday 23 June 2023

UK "international" Lager in 1978

Time for the rest of the Lagers. Not the ones solely for the UK market or ones from large international concerns. With names that are. mostly, more familiar today than the regionally-brewed Lagers from last time. Much of which were put to sleep long ago.

Do Harp and Skol still exist in the UK market? I'm not sure. Skol is definitely very much alive in several markets. For example, Brazil.

With the exception of Harp, most have a distinctly higher gravity than the UK-based examples. Beers such as Holsten and Grolsch seem to be at full continental strength, weighing in at over 5% ABV. Oddly, Stella Artois, infamous for it s high strength, is one of the weakest in this set. And clearly well below the strength of the Belgian version.

A high average rate of attenuation - though not as high as for the "UK" Lagers - leaves the value for money in terms of ABV better than that for OG. Not only are the prices high, but high for the strength. At 62p per pint, Grolsch Pils is by far the most expensive beer of all those sampled by the Sunday Mirror.

The average score, at 9, is the same as the worst-performing Bitter class, Scotland. That's despite two of the seven samples - Grolsch and Stella - getting a very good score of 11. Two of the oldest Lagers in the UK market - Skol and Harp - got shit-poor scores of 6 and 7, respectively.

That's 1978 done. What's next? Well I've a load more analyses from 1971 and 1976. It would be a shame not to use them. 

UK "international" Lager in 1978
Brewer Beer Price per pint (p) º gravity per p % ABV per p OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation score
Allied Skol 36 1.07 0.11 1038.6 1008.2 3.95 78.76% 6
Carlsberg Hof 40 1.05 0.11 1041.9 1007.2 4.52 82.82% 9
Grolsch Pils 62 0.79 0.08 1049.1 1008.9 5.24 81.87% 11
Harp Kronenbourg 43 0.91 0.09 1039 1008.7 3.94 77.69% 9
Harp Harp 33.5 0.97 0.10 1032.4 1005.6 3.48 82.72% 7
Holsten Pils 40 1.14 0.13 1045.5 1006.4 5.11 86.04% 10
Whitbread Sterra Artois 50 0.81 0.09 1040.5 1007.2 4.33 82.22% 11
Average   43.5 0.96 0.10 1041.0 1007.5 4.37 81.73% 9
Source:
Sunday Mirror - Sunday 08 October 1978, page 4.

7 comments:

Robin said...

I thought Harp was brewed by Guinness. Did I get that completely wrong?

The Beer Nut said...

Harp definitely still exists on the UK market. In fact it's the flagship beer of Northern Ireland.

Ron Pattinson said...

Beer Nut,

for the moment it's still in the UK market.

It's easy to forget that Northern Ireland is still part of the UK. Though it never really has been when it comes to beer.

The Beer Nut said...

The Harp Lager Consortium formed in 1961 and consisted of Guinness, Courage, Scottish & Newcastle and Bass. The beer was brewed at a variety of those companies' breweries.

Rob Sterowski said...

Over in the other bit of the UK we don't see much Harp any more. I can’t remember when I last encountered it. I’ll have a look the next time I’m in a supermarket. I can see Tesco, Morrisons and Asda still list it but it might well be NI only by now.

Anonymous said...

Was going to mention Ron that Harp is still popular in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland Ulster counties. The nickname it has is Harpic.
Oscar

Anonymous said...

It's often still available in North America. I'm in the very eastern parts of Canada right now and have seen it in a few offies in cans, but not on draught