Allsopp beers 1870 - 1948

Allsopp. I just never tire of them. Hopefully you don't either. Otherwise things are going to get very tedious for you. I'm nowhere near finished banging this particular drum.

I haven't published a table for, ooh, must be two or three days. Another is long overdue. This one, as the title reveals, covers a period of more than half a century. And it covers quite a wide range of styles. Sadly there are only a couple of Lagers. One of the bizarre twists of the Allsopp story is that they became principally a Lager brewery at one point. From the labels I've seen, they brewed quite a range of Lagers, including a dark Munich-style one.

Luckily there are some typical Burton beers. Burton Ales and IPA. You can probably guess what I'm going to bring up now. Look at the gravities. Pre-WW I, there are only a couple of beers weaker than the IPA: a Mild and a Light Dinner Ale, beers very much in the relegation zone of the strength league. The genuinely strong beers, Burton Ales, are almost twice as strong as the IPA. Hang on, I'll start a new paragraph to make this stand out more . . .

IPA was not a strong beer.

I feel better now. That out of the way, we can discuss some other points of interest. Like attenuation. Some of the beers, IPA for example, have a very high degree of attenuation. 85 to 90%. That's not such a surprise in the case of IPA. That was one of its characteristics. And what differentiated it from standard Pale Ale. More surprising is the 90% attenuation of one of the strong Burton Ales.

One more IPA point. Between 1901 and 1921 its gravity dropped from 1062 to 1054. That's quite a small decline, when you consider that over the same period Whitbread Porter went from 1055 to 1028. Having looked at the gravities of beers from Worthington and Bass, it seems Burton brewers were much less affected by gravity cuts.

But that's enough of me. Time for you to wonder and some numbers:

Allsopp beers 1870 - 1948
Year	Beer	Style	Price	size	package	Acidity	FG	OG	Colour	ABV	atten-uation
1870	Old Burton Ale (brewed March 1869)	Strong Ale		pint	draught	0.32	1040.38	1121.63		10.64	66.80%
1870	Old Burton Ale	Strong Ale	6d	pint	draught	0.25	1030.11	1111.45		10.69	72.98%
1870	Burton Ale	Strong Ale	4d	pint	draught	0.56	1008.61	1086.4		10.30	90.03%
1870	Mild	Mild	2d	pint	draught	0.22	1014.78	1057.33		5.53	74.22%
1879	Burton Ale	Mild				0.235	1013.99	1069.51		7.88	78.79%
1896	Burton Light Dinner Ale	Dinner Ale				0.198	1007.72	1053.92		5.81	85.02%
1896	Luncheon Stout	Stout					1011.51	1063.47		6.69	80.94%
1901	India Pale Ale, Red Hand	IPA				0.144	1008.62	1061.57		6.80	85.27%
1921	IPA	IPA	8.5d	halfpint	bottled		1004.4	1054.4		6.56	91.91%
1922	PA	Pale Ale	8d	pint	bottled		1009.5	1045.7		4.71	79.21%
1922	Extra Stout (Belgian sample)	Stout		pint	bottled		1014.7	1053.7		5.06	72.63%
1926	Stout	Stout	8d	pint	bottled			1048.4
1928	Stout	Stout	8d	pint	bottled			1049.3
1932	Lager	Lager		pint	bottled		1009.4	1041		4.10	77.07%
1934	Brown Ale	Brown Ale		half pint	bottled			1035.90
1935	Milk Stout	Stout	9d	halfpint	bottled	0.06	1013.8	1049.3		4.61	72.01%
1937	Milk Stout	Stout		pint	bottled	0.05	1015.1	1050.6		4.60	70.16%
1937	Milk Stout	Stout	6d	halfpint	bottled	0.05	1014.5	1050.3		4.64	71.17%
1937	Lager	Lager		pint	bottled	0.05	1011.8	1045.2		4.33	73.89%
1948	Burton Pale Ale (bottled in Brussels)	Pale Ale			bottled	0.08	1008.9	1052.8		5.73	83.14%
1948	John Bull Ale	Pale Ale	13d	half pint	bottled	0.05	1008.2	1038.2	40 + 9	3.90	78.53%
1948	Burton Pale Ale Export (bottled in Brussels)	Pale Ale			bottled	0.07	1007.1	1052.6	18	5.95	86.50%
Sources: British Medical Journal January 15th 1870 Whitbread Gravity Book Truman Gravity Book

One last point. The Burton Pale Ale brewed for the Belgian market. See how that remained a reasonable strength of over 1050 even in the late 1940's. A time when British beer strengths were at a low, second only to 1919. The average gravity of UK-brewed beer was 1032.59 in 1948 and 1030.55 in 1919. Note that beer strengths hit bottom after the end of both wars.