Courage Mild and Bitter in the 1930's

True to my sad nature, I've been whiling away a few hours transcribing beer details from the Whitbread Gravity Book (part one). Still a few thousand entries to go. But something caught my about the Courage beers of the 1930's.

I've mentioned the catastrophic rise in beer in 1931 before. The one that caused beer sales to slump to such an extent that government revenues fell. It had a couple of weird side-effects.

These are the details of the tax hike:

British brewing overview 1920 – 1939
	Production (barrels)	Production (hl)	Average OG	tax per standard barrel	Net excise receipts (pounds)
1920	35,047,947	57,358,068	1039.41	70s	71,276,230
1921	34,504,570	56,468,799	1042.61	100s	123,406,257
1922	30,178,731	49,389,304	1042.88	100s	121,844,583
1923	23,948,651	39,193,404	1042.72	100s	92,262,893
1924	25,425,017	41,609,566	1043.04	80s	76,110,638
1925	26,734,825	43,753,145	1043.12	80s	75,825,827
1926	26,765,610	43,803,527	1043.23	80s	76,320,021
1927	25,100,461	41,078,410	1043.28	80s	78,763,480
1928	25,435,145	41,626,141	1043.17	80s	77,800,471
1929	24,608,000	40,272,468	1043.10	80s
1930	25,061,956	41,015,395	1042.90	80s	71,254,674
1931	23,900,000	39,113,784	1042.50	114s
1932	20,790,812	34,025,411	1041.04	114s	68,710,020
1933	17,950,303	29,376,748	1039.52	80s	67,097,581
1934	20,182,308	33,029,558	1040.99	80s	53,884,405
1935	20,864,814	34,146,520	1041.06	80s	53,582,335
1936	21,969,763	35,954,835	1041.02	80s	55,451,926
1937	22,724,450	37,189,926	1041.10	80s	57,318,585
1938	24,205,631	39,613,967	1041.02	80s	61,241,404
1939	24,674,992	40,382,105	1040.93	80s	62,370,034
Source: Brewers' Almanack 1928, p. 110 Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50

The brewers didn't react as expected to the tax increase. Though, given their past actions, the government really were being a bit thick. Rather than increase the retail price, brewers cut gravities.

But they didn't cut the gravity of every beer. Some of the posher ones - like Bitter - remained the same strength. Which caused the strength differential between Bitter and Mild to expand. Take a look at Courage:

Courage Mild and Bitter in the 1930's
Year	Beer	Style	Price	size	package	FG	OG	ABV	attenuation
1934	X	Mild	5d	pint	draught	1011.1	1035.3	3.02	68.56%
1934	X	Mild	5d	pint	draught	1008.9	1036	3.39	75.28%
1934	X	Mild	5d	pint	draught	1008.7	1034	3.16	74.41%
1934	X	Mild	5d	pint	draught	1010.8	1035	3.03	69.14%
1935	X	Mild	5d	pint	draught	1010	1035	3.13	71.43%
1935	X	Mild	5d	pint	draught	1011	1035	3.00	68.57%
1936	X	Mild	5d	pint	draught	1011.2	1034.7	2.94	67.72%
1936	PA	Pale Ale	8d	pint	draught	1010.1	1052.8	5.34	80.87%
1937	PA	Pale Ale	8d	pint	draught	1011.9	1051.9	5.00	77.07%
1937	PA	Pale Ale	8d	pint	draught	1012.8	1052.3	4.94	75.53%
Source: Whitbread Gravity Book

The Mild could be one of today, at around 1035. The Bitter is half as strong again at 1052.

So why is the differential so much smaller now? WW II. Simple as that. When average gravity was set at 1037, its gravity was slashed.