The Price of Lager

Nailing together information from different sources is great fun. And can generate fascinating new data. That's why I enjoy doing it so much.

This all started when I stumbled across a wine merchant's price list from 1932. This one:

Cheltenham Chronicle - Saturday 18 June 1932, page 1.

It's like a roll call of Britain's most famous beers of the time. And what did it remind me of? The Whitbread Gravity Book. Because that's full of famous beers from the 1930's. A quick check of my mega gravity spreadsheet confirmed what I suspected: I'd got the gravity of most of the beers.

This where it gets really exciting: working out the relative cost of each. That is, the price per gravity point per dozen pints. The results are intriguing and not quite what I had expected in every case.

Brewery	Place	year	beer	OG	date OG	size	price per dozen (pence)	price per gravity point (pence)
Truman	Burton	1932	Pale Eagle Ale	1038	1932	half pint	48	2.53
Truman	Burton	1932	Pale Eagle Ale	1038	1932	pint	90	2.37
Truman	Burton	1932	Pale Eagle Ale	1038	1932	quart	168	2.21
Flower's	Stratford	1932	Light Bitter Ale	1041	1936	half pint	48	2.34
Flower's	Stratford	1932	Light Bitter Ale	1041	1936	pint	90	2.20
Whitbread	London	1932	Pale Ale	1046.1	1932	half pint	54	2.34
Whitbread	London	1932	Pale Ale	1046.1	1932	pint	96	2.08
Mitchell & Butler	Birmingham	1932	All Bright Ale	1044	1932	pint	102	2.32
George	Bristol	1932	Home Brewed Ale	1055.6	1936	quart	204	1.83
Worthington	Burton	1932	Pale Ale	1055.4	1933	half pint	72	2.60
Worthington	Burton	1932	Pale Ale	1055.4	1933	pint	132	2.38
Bass	Burton	1932	Pale Ale	1054.7	1932	half pint	72	2.63
Bass	Burton	1932	Pale Ale	1054.7	1932	pint	132	2.41
William Younger	Edinburgh	1932	Scotch Ale	1051.5	1932	half pint	78	3.03
Wrexham	Wrexham	1932	Welsh Lager Beer			half pint	72
Tennent	Glasgow	1932	Lager Beer	1043.1	1933	half pint	72	3.34
Tennent	Glasgow	1932	Lager Beer	1043.1	1933	pint	138	3.20
Barclay Perkins	London	1932	Lager Beer	1049.4	1934	half pint	72	2.91
Alloa Brewery	Alloa	1932	Graham's Golden Lager Beer	1044.5	1933	half pint	72	3.24
Whitbread	London	1932	London Stout	1044.3	1932	half pint	66	2.98
Whitbread	London	1932	London Stout	1044.3	1932	pint	114	2.57
Raggett	London	1932	Nourishing Stout	1056.3	1935	half pint	72	2.56
Raggett	London	1932	Nourishing Stout	1056.3	1935	pint	132	2.34
Simmond	Reading	1932	Milk Stout	1049	1933	half pint	72	2.94
Simmond	Reading	1932	Milk Stout	1049	1933	pint	132	2.69
Guinness	Dublin	1932	Extra Stout	1055.2	1933	half pint	66	2.39
Guinness	Dublin	1932	Extra Stout	1055.2	1933	pint	126	2.28
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/098 and LMA/4453/D/01/099
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/641
Cheltenham Chronicle - Saturday 18 June 1932, page 1.

Here, for clarity's sake, are just the half pints, sorted in descending order of price:

Brewery	Place	year	beer	OG	date OG	size	price per dozen (pence)	price per gravity point (pence)
Tennent	Glasgow	1932	Lager Beer	1043.1	1933	half pint	72	3.34
Alloa Brewery	Alloa	1932	Graham's Golden Lager Beer	1044.5	1933	half pint	72	3.24
William Younger	Edinburgh	1932	Scotch Ale	1051.5	1932	half pint	78	3.03
Whitbread	London	1932	London Stout	1044.3	1932	half pint	66	2.98
Simmond	Reading	1932	Milk Stout	1049	1933	half pint	72	2.94
Barclay Perkins	London	1932	Lager Beer	1049.4	1934	half pint	72	2.91
Bass	Burton	1932	Pale Ale	1054.7	1932	half pint	72	2.63
Worthington	Burton	1932	Pale Ale	1055.4	1933	half pint	72	2.60
Raggett	London	1932	Nourishing Stout	1056.3	1935	half pint	72	2.56
Truman	Burton	1932	Pale Eagle Ale	1038	1932	half pint	48	2.53
Guinness	Dublin	1932	Extra Stout	1055.2	1933	half pint	66	2.39
Whitbread	London	1932	Pale Ale	1046.1	1932	half pint	54	2.34
Flower's	Stratford	1932	Light Bitter Ale	1041	1936	half pint	48	2.34
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/098 and LMA/4453/D/01/099
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/641
Cheltenham Chronicle - Saturday 18 June 1932, page 1.

I wasn't surprised that the two most expensive beers were Lagers. They were marketing as premium beers and priced accordingly. What interested me more was that the top three were all Scottish, with Younger's No. 3 almost as expensive as the Lagers. I guess that must have been marketed as a premium beer, too. Come to think of it, I have come across dozens of adverts for it. (In case you're wondering how I know that the beer in the price list is No. 3, I've another price list where explicitly says Younger's No. 3 and the price is exactly the same. Plus Younger only marketed two beers as Scotch Ale: No. 1 and No. 3. The price is too cheap for it to possibly be No. 1.)

I hadn't expected Stouts to come in at numbers four and five. Especially not those types of Stout. Which brings me to the biggest shock: how relatively cheap Guinness was. Remarkably good value, in fact. I've no explanation. I would have expected it to be dearer than Whitbread's London Stout.

The Burton Pale Ales are nicely grouped together in the middle. I'm not surprised that Bass and Worthington had almost identical gravities and were the same price. I would have expected the weaker Truman Pale Ale to be cheaper.

Getting back to the price of Lager (it is the title, after all), let's see exactly how much more expensive it was in percentage terms. I make Tennent's and Graham's Lagers 27% more expensive than Bass Pale Ale and a whopping 43% more expensive than Whitnbread Pale Ale. If we look at cheaper beers, the difference is even bigger - almost double the price of Whitbread's draught X Ale.

Draught Beers
Brewery	Place	year	beer	OG	date OG	size	price per dozen (pence)	price per gravity point (pence)
Guinness	Dublin	1933	Extra Stout	1054.6	1933	pint	11	2.42
Whitbread	London	1932	Pale Ale	1045.3	1932	pint	8	2.12
Truman	Burton	1932	Pale Ale	1045.5	1932	pint	8	2.11
Flower	Stratford	1935	Pale Ale	1047.2	1935	pint	8	2.03
Whitbread	London	1933	Stout	1047.8	1933	pint	8	2.01
Worthington	Burton	1936	Pale Ale	1046.9	1936	pint	7	1.79
Whitbread	London	1933	X	1034.9	1933	pint	5	1.72
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

The moral of all this? Drink Mild not Lager!