It's been a long day. I got home late and had arsing issues with doing much research. So a short post. Try to forgive me.Brewery of the day is City of London. What an odd history it had. It really was in the City of London, on Upper Thames Street. It was very old, being founded before 1431. Brewing stopped in 1922 and transferred to another brewery the company owned in Fulham. The Fulham brewer closed in 1936, but the company retained some pubs. The brewery building was destroyed in WW II, but the company remained in existence, only selling its last 20 pubs in 1968. Th e company still exists as an investment trust.
Thanks to Norman Barber's Excellent "A Century of British Brewers Plus" for the above information. It's one of the books I use most and most admire.
End of history lesson. Here are their beers from the 1920's:
Not a great number of samples, just two for Porter. But both are below par. I think I'm starting to recognise a pattern.
Soon you'll be able to write my blog for yourself. This is the bit where I warn of much more of the same in the days to follow. Here it comes . . . . . Lot's more dodgy Porters tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Ron. Why (if you know) did Whitbread take such an extensive interest in other brewers beers? And did other brewers reciprocate? Was there a mass analysis and tasting going on? If so, it must have kept them busy in the lab. Ah. Did they have labs? How was this all done?
ReplyDeleteTandleman, Whitbread would have wanted the information for commercial purposes. Remember that beer strengths were not public knowledge.
ReplyDeleteTruman kept a similar book. I assume other brewers did, too. You notice that the beers of a particular type from different breweries have remarkably similar OG's.
Volume 1 of Whitbread's Gravity Book has loads of typewritten sheets inside the front cover. They are letters from the lab listing their results.
It's noticeable that there are far more entries for some years than others. Usually years when changes were taking place, like the early 1920's and 1931-1933.