Hoare Burton Ale quality 1922 - 1923

We've come to one of the big Porter brewers now in our leisurely ramble through the Burton Ales of the 1920's.

Hoare made healthy profits in the 1920's, but the run-up to WW I had been an unhappy time for the brewery. In 1909 the company made a whacking £914,500 loss. The tied estate was the principal cause. With beer consumption falling and taxation rising, many tenants struggled to pay the interest on their loans or their rent. £465,000 of the loss was in the form of loans to publicans. The brewery had paid over the odds in a scramble to acquire tied houses in the 1890's. When the pubs were revalued, they were worth far less than had been paid for them*.

The solution was to drastically reduce the company's capital - to £731,250 - by cancelling some of the preference shares and all of the ordinary shares**.

"Hoare and Co., Ltd., recommend a final dividend of 2.5 per cent, (making 5 per cent, for year ended April 18th, 1923), and they have resolved, subject to audit, that the surplus available profits for the participation certificate-holders for the year ended April 18th, 1923. are £128,595. This amount will redeem at par the whole of the outstanding participation certificates. After providing for a distribution of 5 per cent, (as for the two previous years) on the shares, the surplus available profits for the participating certificate-holders for the year ended April 18th last will amount, as shown above, to £128,595, which, the directors announce, will redeem at par the whole of the outstanding participating certificates. The latter, it may be recalled, were issued to holders of preference shares in 1910. when the capital of the company was reduced in order to extinguish losses. The original amount of the certificates was £310,000. Under the arrangement, after payment of 5 per cent. dividends on the share capital; and the remaining surplus profits belonged to the certificates, one-third of which was applied as to dividend, and two-thirds for redemption purposes. In June, 1921, however, the certificate-holders agreed to the whole of the surplus available profits being applied to redemption, and in lieu thereof the denomination of each certificate was raised from £2 to £2 15s. There is now only one class of share, the former preference shares, of which there were two classes, being written down in 1910 and consolidated and converted into the present shares of €10 each, the then existing ordinary shares being cancelled at the same time."
"The Brewers' journal, 1923", page 368.

After the war, their finances were looking much healthier and as you can see the legacy of the restructuring, participation certificates, were paid off in 1923.

Now we've finished with all that dull money stuff, on with the beer.

This is interesting. Hoare's Burton has a higher than average gravity. But also a lower than average degree of attenuation, at under 70%. Most are a bit over 75%. No surprise then that the ABV is a little on the low side, averaging just under 5%.

Hoare's Mild placed 9th out of 17, so about exactly in the middle, with a score of 0.30. How did their Burton Do?

Hoare Burton Ale quality 1922 - 1923
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Appearance	Flavour	score
1922	KK	1016	1056.5	5.33	72.57%	cloudy	fair	1
1922	KK	1019	1056.3	4.88	66.96%	almost bright	only fair	0
1922	KK	1020	1054	4.46	63.89%	v bright	good	2
1922	KK	1014	1051.9	4.87	72.25%	cloudy	bitter yeast	-1
1923	KK	1019	1054.9	4.59	64.66%	hazy	good	2
1923	KK	1018	1055.4	4.79	66.79%	bright	v fair	2
1923	KK	1015	1055.5	5.26	72.97%	hazy	only fair	0
1923	KK	1017	1055	4.93	69.09%	fairly bright	fairly good	1
1923	KK	1017	1055	4.93	69.09%	almost bright	rather sweet	-1
Average		1017	1054.94	4.89	68.70%			0.67
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

I'm starting to think that draught beer was often not clear in the 1920's. Only three of the nine examples here were clear. Not very good. The flavour is once again rather better. Only two negative scores and neither that bad. Five positive scores, including three twos. Giving an average score of 0.67, or fairly good.

I've added Hoare to my list of brewery's whose pubs I'll give a try. Now just to get that time machine. They must be available somewhere on the internet.




* "The Red Lion" by Victoria Hutchings, 2013, pages 91 - 92.
** "The Red Lion" by Victoria Hutchings, 2013, page 91.