The Beers of James Hole in 1892

Remember me telling you about the adverts Holes placed in local newspapers. Here's an example:

Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald - Saturday 05 March 1892, page 1.

Chesterfield is about 30 miles Northwest of Newark.

It's an interesting set of beers. As much as for what's missing as what'e there. What is the huge ommission? That's right: Porter. In the latter decades of the 19th century Porter slowly ebbed away from much of the country, though it remained strong in London until after WW I.

Here are the beers in table form:

Holes beers in 1892
Beer	price per barrel	price (per gallon)	OG (my guess)
AK Luncheon Ale	42	14	1050
X Light Mild Ale	36	12	1050
XX Mild Ale	42	14	1060
XXX Mild Ale	48	16	1070
XXXX Strong Ale	54	18	1080
BB Strong Ale	72	24	1100
India Pale Ale	54	18	1065
Double Stout	48	16	1070
Source:
Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald - Saturday 05 March 1892, page 1.

So what do we see Holes brewing? Let's go through them in order. First there's AK, the brewery's flagship brand right until its closure. It's a type of Light Bitter or Running Bitter that became very popular in the last half of the 19th century. The had a variety of names and descriptions, AK being quite a common one. Luncheon Ale and Dinner Ale were amongst the descriptions used. The original Pale Ales had been Stock Ales, stored for long periods before sale - sometimes more than 12 months. They were expensive to produce, which was refelcted in a price higher than than you would expect from their gravity, which was usually 1060-1065º. Running Bitters had a lower gravity - 1050-1055º - were sold at a price closer to that of X Ale and were ready for sale after a couple of weeks.

While I'm talking about Stock Pale Ale, that's probably what Holes IPA was, judging by the price.

Now the three Mild Ales. By thuis point the big London brewers were down to just a single Mild, X Ale. Oddly also their biggest seller. Holes we can see still brewed three. Four, probably, as the XXXX was most likely just a stronger version of the Milds. My guess would be that the four were parti-gyled in various combinations. What does "Light Mild Ale" really mean? Does the light refer to colour or strength? It's impossible to know because this is about when some Milds srtarted turning dark.

BB. Now there's a fascinating designation. It looks to me, from the price, like a really strong Burton Ale. I've never seen BB used for a Strong Ale by any other brewery. BB is normally used as shorthand for Bitter Beer. Obviously not the case here. Worthington used all sorts of weird letters for their beers, but their Strong Ales were B, F and G.

As we've already done IPA, there's just Double Stout left. Also significant that there's only one. Many breweries still produced a coiple of different ones. The rise of bottled beer helped brewers keep a larger range of Stouts as some, especially the stronger ones, probably didn't sell well on draught. And talking of bottles, it's significant that no bottled beers appear. While other Newark breweries had been advertising them since the 1880's.

Here, for comparison purposes, are Whitbread's beers from a price list of a few years earlier:

Whitbread price list of 1888
beer	price per barrel	price (per gallon)	price (per doz) pint	size
London Porter	38	12.67
London Stout	46	15.33
Family Ale	38	12.67
London Cooper			2s 6d	Imperial pint
Family Ale			2s 6d	Imperial pint
London Stout			3s	Imperial pint
Pale Ale			3s	Imperial pint
Extra Stout			3s 6d	Imperial pint

And here from the breing records of 1892:

Whitbread Ales and Porters in 1892
Date	Year	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
15th Aug	1892	X	Mild	1060.9	1018.0	5.68	70.46%	8.04	2.11
9th Mar	1892	KK	Stock Ale	1076.5	1025.0	6.81	67.30%	14.32	5.10
25th Mar	1892	2KKK	Stock Ale	1079.8	1027.0	6.98	66.16%	13.74	5.05
2nd Nov	1892	KKK	Stock Ale	1088.6	1033.0	7.36	62.77%	14.00	6.00
29th Sep	1892	FA	Pale Ale	1051.0	1013.0	5.02	74.49%	10.89	2.53
29th Aug	1892	2PA	Pale Ale	1053.2	1016.0	4.92	69.92%	10.97	2.75
15th Aug	1892	PA	Pale Ale	1059.0	1018.0	5.42	69.49%	10.90	3.00
7th Apr	1892	P	Porter	1057.9	1015.0	5.67	74.09%	7.58	1.63
8th Mar	1892	C	Porter	1058.2	1014.0	5.84	75.93%	7.26	1.88
16th Mar	1892	SS	Stout	1084.5	1030.0	7.21	64.49%	10.62	4.91
16th Mar	1892	SSS	Stout	1093.3	1034.0	7.85	63.58%	10.62	5.42
Source:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/057, LMA/4453/D/01/058 and LMA/4453/D/09/086.

FA - or Family Ale - was Whitbread's Light Bitter. Note that though porter cost the same, it had a significantly higher gravity.
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