I'm back with the draught beers from 1972. Yes, I'm going to squeeze the last few drops of blood from these analyses.
Just look at how many Big Six breweries there still were in the capital. Courage, Whitbread, Watney are all represented here. And two others - Charrington and Mann - aren't. Then there's Truman, who weren't quite yest in the big boys club. Only Watney's Mortlake was still in operation in 1990.
All the beers have gravities in a pretty narrow range: 1035.1º to 1039.3º. Together, they average out to almost exactly the national average of 1036.9.* Fairly classic Ordinary Bitters, then. Other than Courage Best Bitter, which is just about strong enough for that classification.
While we're talking of gravities, that of Whitbread Tankard looks too low. In the brewing records, it's more than 2º higher, at 1039.8º. And had been brewed at that strength for a decade or more. So how come it was analysed at 1037.3º? If it were a cask beer, I'd conclude that it had been watered or had weaker slops added to it. But I'm pretty sure it was a keg-only beer. Meaning it couldn't easily be tampered with. Bit of a mystery, that.
Worst value by quite a margin are the two Truman's beers. Though the gravities are so similar, I can't help wondering if they are, in fact, the same beer. They're the two most expensive beers as well. And also the most highly attenuated.
Best value is the surprisingly cheap Courage Best, which is almost 1p per pint cheaper than the average. Yet has the highest gravity and ABV.
I never tried most of these beers. For the simple reason that they were evil keg. The only ones I drank were Young's Ordinary and Courage Best. The latter was a decent enough beer in its London and Bristol incarnations. When you could find it on cask and well looked after. It's only a couple of years since I last drank it. When it was inoffensively bland. Who knows where it was brewed.
IPA? One of these beers was called IPA for more than 50 years. Any guesses?
All will be revealed on Sunday.
London Bitter in 1972 | ||||||||
Brewer | Beer | Price per pint (p) | º gravity per p | % ABV per p | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation |
Truman | Titan | 16 | 2.28 | 0.25 | 1036.5 | 1005.8 | 4.00 | 84.11% |
Truman | Special | 15 | 2.38 | 0.26 | 1035.7 | 1005.7 | 3.90 | 84.03% |
Whitbread | Tankard | 14.5 | 2.59 | 0.27 | 1037.6 | 1007.6 | 3.90 | 79.79% |
Watney | Red | 14 | 2.66 | 0.26 | 1037.2 | 1009.5 | 3.60 | 74.46% |
Courage | Tavern | 14 | 2.66 | 0.26 | 1037.3 | 1008.8 | 3.70 | 76.41% |
Whitbread | Trophy | 13 | 2.70 | 0.28 | 1035.1 | 1006.6 | 3.70 | 81.20% |
Young | Ordinary Bitter | 13 | 2.73 | 0.27 | 1035.5 | 1008.5 | 3.50 | 76.06% |
Watney | Special | 12.5 | 2.90 | 0.27 | 1036.2 | 1010 | 3.40 | 72.38% |
Courage | Best Bitter | 13 | 3.02 | 0.32 | 1039.3 | 1007.8 | 4.10 | 80.15% |
Average | 13.9 | 2.66 | 0.27 | 1036.7 | 1007.8 | 3.76 | 78.73% | |
Source: | ||||||||
Daily Mirror July 10th 1972, page 15. |
* Statistical Handbook of the British Beer & Pub Association 2005, p. 7.
5 comments:
I drank gallons of Whitbread Trophy as a teenager in the late eighties, keg in pubs, bottled and canned at home. Inoffensively bland would be a good way to describe it too.
About twenty years ago I was in a pub in west London that only had one cask ale. And it was Courage Best. My heart sank but I duly ordered a pint and I was amazed. It was clearly well looked after, and was well served. And very tasty.
This was not long after Greene King IPA had won awards at the Great British Beer Festival, leading to lots of disgust and harrumphing. But on that day, in that pub, I could see how Greene King IPA could win an award if it had been kept as well as that Courage Best.
Courage got bought by Wells and Youngs, so it it was after 2007 the pint you had was probably brewed in Bedford. Goodness knows where it is now since Carlsberg Marstons sold the Eagle brewery.
Pretty sure it's not Whitbread Tankard, or they would have sang about it in that Abdul the Bulbul Amir song.
Whitbread best beer and indeed an interesting song original written by the Irish composer Percy French also known for are you right there Michael.
Oscar
My paternal Grandfather when he worked in London loved Young’s special bitter.
Oscar
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