War damage in Northern France

One of the tragedies of WW I was that it was fought (the Western Front, at least) on the corner of Europe with the greatest concentration of breweries.

It's not such a great surprise to discover that Belgium was stuffed full of breweries back then. The peak number of breweries (3,349 in 1910*) in the country was achieved just before WW I . To put that number into context, there were only slightly more in the UK, 3,647. A number which inlcuded 2,357 pub breweries**.

Of course, most of the breweries in Belgium were tiny. Many weren't even full time, being run as a sideline by farmers to bring in extra cash and to give them something to do in the slack times of year.

It may well come as a surprise to you that across the border in France there was an equally large concentration of breweries, nearly 1,800 just in the area occupied by the Germans. Call it French Flanders and it doesn't sound quite so surprising. It had the largest concentration of breweries in France, though again, most of them were very small. And still brewed the old, top-fermenting way.

In 1920 a paper called "The Reconstruction of the Brewing Industry of Northern France" was presented by Eugene Boullanger and H. Lloyd Hind. Right down my boulevard. This is an extract from it:

"Beer is very largely the popular drink in wide manufacturing districts in the North of France, and it was just those regions invaded by the enemy that were the largest brewing  centres. How hard the industry was hit will be realised when it is noted that there were about 1,800 breweries situated in the occupied zone the time of its greatest extension in 1918. All these breweries were more or less damaged, those in the lines being generally absolutely destroyed; others, spared this destruction, were systematically stripped by the Germans of all copper vessels, machinery, casks, belting, and the like. But spoilation by the enemy and bombardment by friend and foe alike were not the only forms of destruction they suffered. Breweries are useful places to an army: their vats make glorious baths, and their casks, when cut in two, are good for many purposes. Looking back calmly on what seemed then the natural thing to do with casks, many of which were in truth to an English brewer's eyes unfit for their normal use, but were all these small breweries possessed, one realises what an immense loss was caused by their use for baths, for tar-barrels, and even for firewood, at a time when casks were beyond price, and replacement was practically impossible."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 27, Issue 2, February 1921, page 54.

I knew that the Germans had stripped out all the copper and other useful items. And that their shells had smashed up many brewery buildings. But the news of the casual destruction wrought by friendly troops was a revelation to me. But I suppose soldiers tend to grab stuff they think might be useful without particularly worrying of the consequences to others. Especially in WW I, they had other more pressing concerns, like not getting blown to pieces, machine-gunned or gassed.

Here's a breakdown of the breweries by region and the amount of beer they produced:

"The following statistics of the position in 1913 give an idea of the size of the industry and of the extent of the disaster which overtook it. There were 1,797 breweries in the invaded area, their output being 40 million degree-hectolitres*** in 1913, or almost two-thirds of the total beer production of France.

*** The "degree-hectolitre" is the number of hectolitres charged by the Excise authorities multiplied by the number of degrees of gravity, which are expressed in units of ten times the degree as known to English brewers. Thus 1030 in English gravity is referred to as 3 "degrees" and 1045 as 4.5 "degrees,"

	Degree-hectos.	Barrels.	Number of breweries.
Arrondissement of Lille	12,071,046	2,300,000	227
" Avesne	3,159,568	600,000	212
" Cambrai	3,040,972	580,000	234
" Douai	2,633,585	500,000	130
" Valenciennes	4,159,102	800,000	300
" Hazebrouck (invaded part only)	640,000	120,000	37
Departement du Nord total (for invaded part only)	25,704,273	4,900,000	1,140
Arrondissement of Arras (for invaded part only)	2,000,000	380,000	90
Arrondissement of Bethune (for invaded part only)	2,880,000	550,000	98
Departement of Pas-de-Calais total (invaded part only)	4,880,000	930,000	188
Departement of Somme (invaded part only)	480,000	90,000	43
Departement of Aisne (invaded part only)	1,888,022	360,000	182
Departement of Ardennes (invaded part only)	1,939,038	370,000	210
Departement of Oise, Marne, Meuse, and Meurthe et Moselle (invaded part only)	2,040,000	390,000	34
Total	36,931,333	7,040,000	1,797

Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 27, Issue 2, February 1921, pages 54 - 55.

You can see that two-thirds of the breweries were in Nord in the area around Lille. A majority of the other third were in the neighboring départements of Aisne and Ardennes. In the more  easterly départements of Meuse and Meurthe et Moselle there were only a handful of breweries. For those of you not familiar with French geography, here's a map of the departements in the region:

(What's marked on the map as Moselle was part of the German Empire in 1914.)

Not only were the breweries small, they were also brewing pretty watery beers. They remind me of the stuff brewed in Britain in 1918 and 1919:

"The number of barrels given as charged is only a very rough approximation, based on the assumption that the average gravity is 1032, which is most probable, considering the large amount of beer brewed at 1020, 1025, and 1030 in the mining districts.
. . . .
Among these breweries only about 100 turned out lager beer, and these were found in the Ardennes, Mouse, Marne, and Meurthe et Moselle. The others were top fermentation breweries, and the majority were very small. There were indeed only 50 producing more than 24,000 barrels a year, with an average output of 28,700 barrels, a total of 1,436,000 barrels.

There were 100 breweries producing between 12,000 and 24,000 barrels, with an average of 16,500 barrels a year, and a total of 1,050,000; 350 producing between 3,000 and 12,000 a year, with an average of 7,000 and a total of 2,560,000 barrels; and 1,300, producing less than 3,000 a year each, with an average of 1,500 and a total of 2,000,000 barrels a year.
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 27, Issue 2, February 1921, pages 55 - 56.

A lot of the beer brewed in Belgium was similarly weak. It's odd that Belgium is now associated with strong beer. The exact opposite was true until after WW II.

It doesn't surprise me that it was in the eastern départements that most of the Lager was brewed. For most of the 20th century there were two brewing regions in France: Nord and Pas-de-Calais and Alsace and Lorraine. The former having mostly small top-fermenting breweries and the latter large bottom-fermenting breweries. There was a period in the 1980's when these were the only regions of France to have any breweries at all.

To contextualise that, here are two tables. The first is the above information on French breweries in table form:

output (barrels)	no. breweries	% of total
< 3,000	1,300	72.22%
3000 - 12,000	350	19.44%
12,000 - 24,000	100	5.56%
> 24,000	50	2.78%
total	1,800

The second the number of British breweries by size class in 1914:

UK breweries in 1914
output (barrels)	no. breweries	% of total
< 1,000	2,536	69.54%
1,000 - 10,000	580	15.90%
10,000 - 20,000	197	5.40%
20,000 - 100,000	280	7.68%
100,000 - 500,000	46	1.26%
> 500,000	8	0.22%
total	3,647
Source:
1928 Brewers' Almanack, page 118.

You can see that, pub breweries aside (they constituted all but a handful of the breweries producing less than 1,000 barrels), the British industry operated on a much larger scale than the French one.

Yet another post packed full of tables. I should call this Table Week.




* "Het Brouwersblad" June 2004, pages 6-7
** 1928 Brewers' Almanack, page 118.

When was Brettanomyces discovererd?

Trawling through the Journal of the Institute of brewing, I stumbled upon a little article about Brettanomyces by R. B. Gilliland. It was a revelation.

I'd accepted that it was Claussen, working at the Carlsberg laboratory, who first discovered Brettanomyces in 1903.It turns out that's not the whole truth:

"Occurrence of Brettanomyces.—The earliest reference to Brettanomyces, or secondary yeasts, was in a patent for the use of these organisms for the preparation of English beers which was taken out by Claussen in 1903. In a paper to the Institute of Brewing in 1904, Claussen described the importance of Brettanomyces for secondary fermentation and the production of the characteristic flavour of English stock beers. Claussen did not give a detailed description of these organisms, which he included in the genus Torula. Shortly after this, Seyffert of the Kalinkin Brewery in St. Petersberg announced that he had isolated a "Torula" in 1889 from English beer which produced the typical "English" taste in lager beer, and which was similar in other respects to Claussen's Brettanomyces. In 1899 J. W. Tullo, in the Chemist's Laboratory, Arthur Guinness Son & Co. Ltd., Dublin, had already isolated two types of "secondary yeast" from Irish stout, and in an unpublished report described the characteristics of these yeasts and their importance in secondary fermentation. At this time the "secondary yeasts" were important constituents of the flora of all stock beers, and in particular of those beers, designed for the export trade, which under went long maturation in the brewery. These export beers depended indeed on the "secondary yeasts," not only for their characteristic flavour but also for the production of condition in bottle by means of their ability to ferment higher polysaccharides which the "primary yeast" could not ferment."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 67, Issue 3, May-June 1961, page 257.

Claussen may have been the first to publish about Brattanomyces, but he wasn't the first to find it.

On the face of it, a brewery in St. Petersberg seems an even more unlikely place to come across Brettanomyces than in Denmark. But, if you think about it, there is some sense to it. In the late 19th century, about the only beer being imported into Russia was strong Stout. Stuff that would have been aged and gained its distinctive flavour from a Brettanomyces secondary conditioning. Someone trying to replicate such a beer might well go looking for the secondary conditioing yeast.

As for Guinness, well, they're exactly the sort of brewery you would expect to have discovered Brattanomyces. In the 1890's Guinness still vatted a decent quantity of beer. Foreign Extra Stout was mostly a vatted beer, but a proportion of aged beer was also blended into Extra Stout and Porter. While in Britain this sort of long maturation was only used for the strongest beers, it was a vital part of all Guinness's products.

Why didn't Seyffert or Tullo publish? In the former case, it was most likely a commercial decision. If you'd cracked the way of turning any old Lager into aged Stout, you'd quite likely want to keep it to yourself. There was potentially lots of money to be earned from that knowledge. Perhaps there was the same consideration at Guinness.

That also might explain why Claussen did publish. Secondary conditioning wasn't really part of Carlsberg's business.

Traditional North German Beers

We're still with Narziss's article on the Reinheitsgebot, but this time looking at top-fermenting beers rather than Lagers.

I'll let Narziss speak first:

"3.1.2. Sugar is permitted in North Germany for the traditional top fermented 'Malt Beers'. Today these beers are brewed with 100% malt to a gravity of 8% and fortified after a limited fermentation and filtration by sugar to 12% gravity. The dark colour is adjusted or corrected by sugar caramel (roasted sugar without ammonia). They are not allowed to be sold in Bavaria as 'Beers', only as 'malt-beverages with sugar". Originally they had to be filled into bottles which could be clearly distinguished from beer bottles. After the Eurobottle was used for softdnnks and even wine (the Vichy bottle as well), this issue has been weakened, it is quite obvious, that even in Germany, there are different regulations, varying from country to country, according to tradition. The addition of sugar to the 'Malt-Beers' (Sucrose, Invertsugar, Sugar Caramel) has to be declared on the label. The sales figures are in ihe region of 1.5%. but they decrease each year. Sugar and saccharine are used in certain areas of North West Germany to fortify the taste of the 'plain beers' (Einfachbiere). They are called 'Sweet' or 'Caramel'; the colour is dark and the gravity in the range of 2.0-5.5% P. They follow an old tradition in this part of the country and are not allowed to be distributed to other areas. The content of sugar and of saccharine must be displayed on the labels. The production of 'beers' containing sugar is supervised by excise officers and controlled by government laboratories as well. The same regulations apply to weak beers which are sweetened with sugar and saccharine. The demand for these beverages is also declining (below 0.03%).

Table II gives a survey on Traditional North German beers which had been on sale before 1914. between the wars and which are available in some areas still today."

TABLE II. Traditional North German Beers
	Name	Strength	Alcohol	Notes
l.	Malt	12% Plato	1.5% w/w	30% sugar plus caramel limited fermentation
2	Fresh or young	Various	_	'Green' beer finished in the household
3	Spontaneous fermentation beers	Strong	Various	Contained some unboiled worts acidic stored like wine before consumption
4	Plain beers (dark)	2-0-5-5% plato	Limited fermentation	Sugar and saccharine added
5	Berliner Weissbier	7-0-8-0% plato	Lactic acid and yeast fermentation +-2% w/w	50% Malted barley 50% Malted Wheat
Today only 5 have survived the sales of 1 are approximately 1.5% of total volume and Ihe others have practically vanished.

Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 90, Issue 6, November-December 1984, page 353.

I'd best re-translate the names back to German before we go any further.

Malt Beer = Malzbier
Plain Beer = Einfachbier

You may notice a similarity between the beer styles mentioned above and those in Dörfel's 1947 manuscript:

Groterjan top-fermenting beer types
beer type	real extract	ABV	OG	special features
Malzvollbier	7-10	1.2-1.8	11-11.5	Includes sugar colouring and sugar
Caramel Einnfachbier	1-2.4	0.7-0.9	4	Includes sugar colouring and Dulcin sweetener
Jung Braunbier	1.8-2.3	0.7-1.2	2-3	Includes sugar colouring and sweetener
Berliner Weissbier	2.7-3.4	2-3.5	7-8	Barley malt and wheat malt, 0.25-0.4% acidity
Feinbitter Starkbier	12	1.2-1.4	16	Includes sugar colouring, heavily hopped, low degree of attenuation
Porterbier	7-9	5-7	18-22	Includes sugar colouring, heavily hopped, more alcohol
Source:
Die Herstellung obergäriger Biere und die Malzbierbrauerei Groterjan A.G. in Berlin, by Braumeister A. Dörfel, 1948, page 20.

I'd always known that Bavaria had a tighter form of the Reinheitsgebot, but not that some products which could be sold as beer in northern States had to be relabelled for Bavaria. I wonder if that's still the case?

I keep having new surprises in relation to old German top-fermenting styles. Today's is the inclusion of spontaneously fermented beers. I'm trying to think what the hell it could be. I know that Gose was spontaneously fermented in the 18th century, but by the 19th century they'd worked out how to brew it by pitching both yeast and lactobacillus, much in the manner of Berliner Weisse.

These styles have been in decline for a century at least. The biggest surprise is that they have hung around at all. But they have. Here are the figures of sales by type in 2009 - 2010:

Off sales by beer type 2009 - 2010
	market share			quantity in hl
	2009	2010	Change in %	2009	2010	Change in %
PILS	55.2	55.1	-0.2	30,566,810	29,860,950	-2.3
EXPORT	10.1	9.8	-3.3	5,586,580	5,288,690	-5.3
WEIZEN	7.9	7.9	0.5	4,371,480	4,300,890	-1.6
BIERMIX	6.5	6.5	0.7	3,589,820	3,538,490	-1.4
HELL	4.5	4.5	0.2	2,507,100	2,459,470	-1.9
ALKOHOLFREI	3.3	3.7	12.9	1,814,090	2,005,330	10.5
KÖLSCH	1.7	1.7	0.3	929,040	912,740	-1.8
SCHWARZ/DUNKEL	1.6	1.6	-2.3	905,230	865,730	-4.4
MALZ	1.2	1.2	1.7	671,010	668,170	-0.4
ALT	1.3	1.2	-3.9	696,750	655,680	-5.9
LAGER	0.9	1	1.2	522,480	517,950	-0.9
LIGHT	0.6	0.6	-0.7	356,380	346,500	-2.8
BOCK	0.5	0.5	-0.7	286,580	278,550	-2.8
MÄRZEN	0.5	0.5	-1.4	280,790	271,050	-3.5
DIÄT	0.3	0.3	-7.2	157,310	142,900	-9.2
BERLINER WEISSE	0	0	14.8	9,060	10,180	12.4
ALLE ANDEREN	3.7	3.8	1.5	2,054,760	2,042,280	0
Source:
Deutscher Brauer Bund
http://www.brauer-bund.de/download/Archiv/PDF/statistiken/110502%20Marktanteile%20Biersortensorten%202009-2010.pdf

Off sales of top- and bottom-fermenting beer
	market share			quantity in hl
	2009	2010	Change in %	2009	2010	Change in %
bottom	74.44%	73.91%	-0.72%	41,169,260	40,031,790	-2.76%
top	12.07%	12.09%	0.12%	6,677,340	6,547,660	-1.94%
total				55,305,270	54,165,550	-2.06%
Source:
Deutscher Brauer Bund (derived from the other figures)

While I'm going table crazy, I may as well include another table from Dörfel's 1947 manuscript. This one shows production of top-fermenting beer by tax class.

German top-fermenting beer production by tax class 1932 - 1937 in hl
year	Einfachbier 3-6.5º Plato	Schankbier 7-8% Plato	Vollbier 11 - 14% Plato	Starkbier 16º Plato	total output of top-fermenting beer	% of total beer output	total output of bottom-fermenting beer	total output of beer
1932	860,000	123,000	920,000	3,000	1,906,000	5.7	31,532,596	33,438,596
1933	680,000	129,000	955,000	2,000	1,764,000	5.2	32,159,077	33,923,077
1934	752,000	110,000	1,193,000	3,000	2,058,000	5.6	34,692,000	36,750,000
1935	797,000	117,000	1,351,000	3,000	2,268,000	5.7	37,521,474	39,789,474
1936	747,000	101,000	1,490,000	4,000	2,342,000	5.9	37,352,915	39,694,915
1937	919,000	117,000	1,814,000	5,000	2,835,000	6.5	40,780,385	43,615,385
Source:
Die Herstellung obergäriger Biere und die Malzbierbrauerei Groterjan A.G. in Berlin, by Braumeister A. Dörfel, 1948, page 3.

I bet not many of you would have expected that the proportion of top-fermenting beer would have doubled between the 1930's and 2010. It's just one type that's been responsible for that growth: Weissbier. Pre-WW II, it was a rarity, hanging on its finger tips. Now it's the third most popular style in Germany.

Summer of Lager!

The subconscious runs our lives without us realising. That my posts were facing Bavaria with a Stein of Lager in its fist was no coincidence. I suppose it was ineluctable that summer would summon the spirit of Lager.

Which is as good a reason as any to push what I'm totally convinced is the best book ever written about British Lager*.

In a break with tradition, it isn't just a hastily nailed together collection of blog posts. It is that partly, but there's also a coherently-written short history of British Lager at the start of the book.

The book comes in many forms:

• ebook
• paperback
• deluxe hardback
• Kindle

I've got the deluxe hardback edition myself. It looks great. And the cover won't easily get bent or folded.

Not got your copy yet? Then buy Lager! now!





* It's also the only one.

Czech hop harvest 1918 - 1923

Apologies for the recent number overload. I seem to be in a table sort of mood. Must be the hot summer weather.

Just a brief post today, no more than a simple look at a few hop production figures. With the spice of a little compare and contrast.

These are important statistics in a political sense, because they relate to the first five years of Czechoslovakia's existence. I thought it a shame when the country split up for no particularly good reason. I can remember being driven around Moravia by Czech friends and them making jokes when we crossed the "border" into Slovakia. Fewer than 10 years later the joke had turned into reality.

The compare and contrast is provided by similar figures for UK hop production. There should be something that jumps right out at you:  the much worse yield per acre in Czechoslovakia. Even in the best year, 1920, it was still less than half the average yield in the UK. The acreage under hops for the countries was remarkably similar: just over 20,000 acres. Yet in the UK that produced about three times as many hops. I'd love to know the reason for that big discrepancy. Was it just a matter of better farming methods in the UK or were other factors at play?

It's intriguing that the good and bad years are almost identical for the two countries. I suppose with the disruption of the war, it's no surprise that 1918 was the worst year. But in both countries 1920 and 1922 were the top two years, just in a different order.

I can explain why the hop acreage increased in the UK after the war's end. A surplus of hops, caused by falling gravities in the later phase of the war, encouraged farmers to switch to other crops. With the hop market stabilised after the end of the war, farmers saw prospects in growing hops again. Even so, it remained less than the 33,661 acres which had been dedicated to hops in 1914*.

Why did acreage fall in Czechoslovakia? My guess would be something to do with the fallout of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Some key markets for Czech hops - for example Austria and Hungary - were now in foreign countries. Though I know from brewing records that large quantities of Saaz were used in Britain between the wars.

And that's me done. I told you it would be brief today.

Czech hop harvest 1918 - 1923
Year.	Acres.	Crop. cwt.	Average per acre. owt.
1918	21,065	41,346	1.9
1919	21,462.5	87,036	4.055
1920	20,902.5	105,312	5.04
1921	19,182.5	58,066	3.025
1922	19,655	112,842	5.74
1923	19,402.5	60,873	3.135
average	20,278	77,579	3.82
Source:
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 1924, page 252.

UK hop production 1918 - 1923
year	Acreage	UK production (cwt.)	yield per acre (Cwt.)
1918	15,666	138,491	8.84
1919	16,745	187,795	11.21
1920	21,002	258,042	12.29
1921	25,133	236,172	9.40
1922	26,452	312,000	11.79
1923	24,893	229,000	9.20
average	21,649	226,917	10.46
Source:
1928 Brewers' Almanack, page 119

* Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 63.

Barclay Perkins Lagers 1940 - 1942

You didn't think I was going to let you off with just two posts about Barclay Perkins Lagers did you? I'm happy to report that we've still a way to go.

This time we're looking at Barclay's Lagers in the first half of the war. I would have done the whole war, but I haven't photographed the one covering the second half yet. It's as simple as that.

Barclay Perkins Lagers 1940 - 1942
Date	Year	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fermentation temp	length of fermentation (days)	colour
9th Oct	1940	Dark	Dunkles	1055.5	1015.6	5.28	71.89%	4.68	1.12	1.5	48.5º	58º	14	82
20th Oct	1941	Dark	Dunkles	1055.5	1017.0	5.09	69.37%	3.77	0.91	1.5	46º	56º	13	80
18th Feb	1942	Dark	Dunkles	1048.5	1015.4	4.38	68.25%	3.77	0.79	1.5	45.5º	56º	14	96
9th Aug	1940	Draught	Lager	1041.4	1009.2	4.26	77.78%	5.32	0.87	2	49º	58.5º	13	13
18th Oct	1940	Draught	Lager	1041.2	1009.1	4.25	77.91%	5.50	0.92	2	49º	58º	12	13
16th Jul	1941	Draught	Lager	1040.0	1010.8	3.86	73.00%	4.03	0.65	2	45º	56º	14	11
9th Feb	1942	Draught	Lager	1035.5	1008.2	3.61	76.90%	4.03	0.54	2	45.5º	56º	15	10.5
21st Aug	1942	Draught	Lager	1035.6	1009.5	3.45	73.31%	4.42	0.65	1.75	48.5º	59º	12	11.5
17th Jun	1942	Draught	Lager	1035.5	1008.4	3.59	76.34%	4.42	0.63	1.75	45.5º	55.5º	13	13
5th Aug	1940	Export	Export	1047.4	1010.2	4.92	78.48%	6.00	1.08	2	48.5º	57º	13	10.5
9th Sep	1940	Export	Export	1047.3	1010.7	4.84	77.38%	6.00	1.08	2	º	º	19	10
19th Jul	1941	Export	Export	1047.5	1015.2	4.27	68.00%	4.62	0.87	2	47.5º	56º	13	8.5
11th Feb	1942	Export	Export	1042.0	1009.1	4.35	78.33%	4.62	0.81	2	46º	55.5º	14	10
26th Aug	1942	Export	Export	1042.5	1009.2	4.41	78.35%	4.81	0.82	2	41.5º	60º	10	11
12th Aug	1940	Sparkling Beer	Lager	1045.5	1009.1	4.82	80.00%	5.00	0.92	1.5	48º	59º	12	35
14th Jul	1941	Sparkling Beer	Lager	1045.0	1012.3	4.33	72.67%	3.79	0.70	1.5	46º	56º	13	34
7th Aug	1941	Sparkling Beer	Lager	1045.0	1010.3	4.59	77.11%	3.79	0.70	1.5	45.5º	56º	14	29
31st Jul	1942	Sparkling Beer	Lager	1040.5	1009.2	4.14	77.28%	4.00	0.70	1.5	48.5º	56.5º	14	34
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/643.

You'll see in the table that Barclays had introduced a fourth Lager to their portfolio: Sparkling Beer. It's a bit of a puzzle to me. What style is it? The colour is a little darker than their PA (Best Bitter) and XLK (Ordinary Bitter) which were both 26. And its a little lighter than the amber version of X (Mild) and XX (Best Mild), which were both 42. In Lager terms, I guess it's in the range of a Vienna. Though I doubt that's what it claimed to be.

One of the few things I do know, is that it was an early canned beer. Whether or not that the only format it was packaged in, I'm not sure. However, the absence of it in Barclay's pub price lists suggests that it was purely and export beer.

Talking of which, I've handily got a price list from 1942. Which means I can check up on something dear to all CAMRA members' hearts: how good value for money was Lager in comparison to the top-fermenting beers? Or rather, how poor value for money was it? Turns out not to have been such poor value as I expected.

The first table is of bottled beer:

Barclay Perkins bottled beer prices in 1942
	OG	price per dozen small bottles retail (shillings)	pence per gravity point
BS	1041.4	8.5	2.46
IPA	1031.3	7	2.68
Light Lager	1042.5	10.5	2.96
Dark Lager	1048.5	11.5	2.85
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/01/621, ACC/2305/01/623, ACC/2305/01/624, ACC/2305/01/521/1 and ACC/2305/1/643.

BS was 15% cheaper per gravity point than Dark Lager and 20% cheaper than Light Lager. IPA was 5% cheaper than Dark and 10% cheaper than Light. That's not too bad. But wait until you see the draught beers:

Barclay Perkins draught beer prices in 1942
	OG	Wholesale price per gallon (shillings)	pence per gravity point
A	1027.3	5.17	2.27
X	1028.6	5.67	2.38
XX	1031.4	6.89	2.63
KK	1043.3	8.56	2.37
Export	1042.5	8.50	2.40
Home Light	1035.5	7.42	2.51
Dark	1048.5	9.25	2.29
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/01/621, ACC/2305/01/623, ACC/2305/01/624, ACC/2305/01/521/1 and ACC/2305/1/643.

Now that is a surprise. Only the A, the weakest Mild, cost less per gravity point than Dark. But there is a caveat. The price list gives the public bar price per pint of the top-fermenting beers but not of the Lagers. It looks as if they didn't have a recommended price. So for the draught beers the comparisons are made on the wholesale price. Presumably landlords had the freedom to boost their profit margin on draught Lager by charging what they fwelt like for it. Or maybe it just wasn't sold in public bars. Lager was still quite posh, so that is a possibility.

Getting back to the beers themselves, you can see that the hopping rate per quarter declined along with the gravity. The per quarter rate eliminates gravity from the equation, so this was a real fall in hopping, not one just keeping pace with the fall in gravity.

Interestingly, the gravities of Barclay's Lagers fell less, in percentage terms, than those of most top-fermenting beers:

Barclay Perkins fall in gravities 1939 - 1942
Beer	Style	pre-war	summer 1942	% change
Dark	Dunkles	1057.6	1048.5	15.80%
Draught	Lager	1043.5	1035.5	18.39%
Export	Export	1049.4	1040.5	18.02%
IPA (bottling)	IPA	1043.9	1031.3	28.75%
XX	Mild	1042.5	1031.4	26.14%
X	Mild	1034.9	1028.6	17.96%
A	Mild	1030.8	1027.3	11.36%
KK (trade)	Strong Ale	1055.8	1043.3	22.40%
BS	Stout	1051.5	1041.4	19.61%
LS	Stout	1046.6	1033.5	28.11%
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/01/621, ACC/2305/01/623, ACC/2305/01/624 and ACC/2305/1/643.

Only A, a wishy-washy Mild with not much to go any further gravity-wise, fell less.

One other point before I finish about fermentation temperatures. In the 1930's, the maximum temperature hit during fermentation was mostly around 53º F, with 56º F the highest. By 1942, it had risen to 56-58º F and the highest was 60º F. I would assume this was connected with the cost of keeping the wort refrigerated. It can't have been a voluntary decision, because after the war fermentation temperatures dropped back to their pre-war level.

Wondering if the brewing techniques and recipes changed? We'll be looking at that next time.