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Friday, 5 March 2010

Barclay Perkins sales by beer type 1956

It's still the mid-1950's here at SUABP. I can smell the the coal smoke and feel the smog settling around me. What fun.

Today I've got some surprising numbers harvested from the Barclay Perkins archives. Fascinating stuff about the relative sales of each of their products.


Barclay Perkins output by beer 1956
Beer
style
barrels
%
XX
Mild
45,043
19.63%
X
Mild
2,598
1.13%
DBA
Brown Ale
37,603
16.38%
PA FEST
Best Bitter
1,018
0.44%
PGA

9,308
4.06%
PA (T)
Best Bitter
23,608
10.29%
XLK
Bitter
13,562
5.91%
IPA
IPA
27,661
12.05%
KKKK
Strong Ale
872
0.38%
KK (B)
Old Ale
3,946
1.72%
KK (T)
Burton
2,715
1.18%
IBS EX
Russian Stout
686
0.30%
BBS EX
Export Stout
77
0.03%
LS
London Stout
14,327
6.24%
Lager
Lager
46,486
20.25%
Total

229,510

Source:
Document ACC/2305/1/675 held at the London Metropolitan Archives
Note:
year ending March 31st


See what the big surprise is? The biggest seller is Lager, outselling even draught Mild. Brown Ale also makes an unexpectedly strong showing, only a little behind Mild. And the poor performance of XLK, long one of their mainstays, is a shock.

This was a pivotal moment for Barclay Perkins, being exactly when it merged (taken over, really) by Courage. What happened later to the brewery is less surprising. About a decade later Ale production ceased and it became a dedicated Lager brewery, churning out lots of luvverly Harp for London chavs. A sad end for a great Porter brewery.

The total number of barrels brewed tells its own tale. Those 229,000 barrels look pretty sad compared with Barclay Perkins output in their glory years:

1810    235,100   
1815    337,600
1850    397,360
1900    589,201
1914    582,263

That probably explains why they fell victim to a takeover: declining sales.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous5 March 2010 at 02:38

    Interesting that they should still call it IBS for Imperial Brown Stout when no one had made a pale stout for more than a century. And I'm assuming that KK (T) is the "trade" ie draught for pubs version, while KK (B) is the bottled version - with the same beer apparently known as Burton on draught and Old in bottles, confirming Campbell's statement that, in London, at least, Old and Burton were synonyms.

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  2. Ron Pattinson5 March 2010 at 03:23

    Zythophile, the two versions of KK were not identical. The bottling version was a good bit stronger.

    The term Brown Stout lingered on a long time in London. Oddly, Holt's still have a beer called Brown Stout.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Professor5 March 2010 at 06:59

    The term "Brown Stout" lived on for a while in the USA as well; when the Ballantine brewery in Newark NJ re-opened after prohibition under new ownership, it's new Scottish brewmaster added a "Brown Stout" to Ballantine's range. Like a couple of the brewery's other offerings, this one was brewed to a fairly hefty strength and was cellared in wooden tanks for a full year prior to bottling.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Matt5 March 2010 at 07:47

    I'm assuming all the lager was bottled too. 1956 sounds a bit early for keg founts and cask-conditioned lager is surely a recent innovation in Britain.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gary Gillman5 March 2010 at 11:10

    One of the (India ale) Hodgson's in the 1800's was nicknamed Brown Stout, the gentleman who was a MP. (This may sound like apples and oranges but the beer consumer, then as now, was never very discriminating in the manner of beer terminology). The term came apparently from the scion's size and complexion.

    Gary

    ReplyDelete