Barclay Perkins Pale Ale quality 1922 - 1925

You must have realised what I'm ip to. I really am going to grind through all the beer styles one by one. We may be done by Christmas, if you're lucky.

First some random fun, courtesy of the newspaper archive:

"ENGINE CRASHES INTO BREWERY
200 BARRELS OF BEER CAUSE A DELUGE
Locomotive That Took the Wrong Turning
Taking the "wrong turning" at the points outside Cannon Street Station, London, yesterday, a 60-ton locomotive and tender ran along a " blind " line, mounted the buffers about fifty yards from the crossing, and crashed into the side of Messrs Barclay Perkins' Brewery at end the track.

The wall of the brewery was smashed in and a girder, with some hundredweights of masonry, was thrown into a huge beer vat, which burst with the impact. More than 200 barrels of beer leaked through to the floor below. The front of the engine remained suspended through top of the wall above the vat.

There was no one the room at the time the crash, and one was hurt."
Dundee Courier - Tuesday 03 August 1926, page 5.

Sounds to me like it crashed into the building marked "Ale Brewery", about half way up on the right:

Barclay Perkins brewery in 1896

 Dangerous places, these breweries. There was always something happening:

"BREWERY EXPLOSION.
An explosion took place at the premises of Messrs Barclay, Perkins, & Co., brewers, Park Street, Southwark, London, in the early morning.

Two men were injured.

The men, H. Nicholls and G. Fenton, arrived at the brewery at 6.30 a.m. They went to store cupboard to get their tools.

They lit a gas jet. Immediately there was an explosion. Both men were blown a distance of ten yards. Nicholls was burned badly about the face.

The men, after first-aid treatment at the brewery, were taken to Guy's Hospital. They were able to go home later.
Evening Telegraph - Thursday 16 February 1928, page 3.

What caused the explosion? A gas leak?

Right, on with the beer. It says PA, but that's not what Barclay Perkins called it. They gave this beer the snappy name of XLK (Trade). Trade meaning draught. There was a weaker bottled version. Their stronger Bitter, actually called PA, had been discontinued during WW I. It returned in 1928 at a gravity of 1053. PA was discontinued a second time during WW II and never returned.

In the Pale Ales we'll be looking at there are basically two subtypes: Best Bitter costing 9d per pint (8d in 1923) and Bitter costing 8d (7d in 1923).

Barclay Perkins XLK was a very simple beer: pale malt, No. 2 invert sugar, flaked maize, Golding and Fuggles. Fairly modest hopping of 1.2 lbs per barrel, 3 oz. of dry hops. The attenuation is quite high so it must have been a pretty dry beer.

Let's see how it gets on with scores.

Barclay Perkins Pale Ale quality 1922 - 1925
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Appearance	Flavour	score	Price
1922	PA	1008.2	1044.2	4.69	81.45%	grey	good	2	8d
1922	PA	1007.6	1046.6	5.09	83.69%	bright	fair	1	8d
1922	PA	1011	1046.5	4.61	76.34%	grey	v fair	2	8d
1922	PA	1008.6	1046.1	4.88	81.34%	bright	good	2	8d
1923	PA	1008.8	1046.3	4.88	80.99%	bright	v fair	2	8d
1923	PA	1007.8	1046.3	5.02	83.15%	fizzy	going off	-2	8d
1923	PA	1008.4	1045.4	4.82	81.50%	not bright	v bitter (yeast?)	-1	8d
1923	PA	1009.4	1045.9	4.75	79.52%	bright	going off	-2	7d
1923	PA	1009	1045.5	4.75	80.22%		going off	-2	7d
1923	PA	1007.8	1041.8	4.42	81.34%	grey	gone off	-3	7d
1924	PA		1045.6			brilliant	good	2	7d
1925	PA	1009.4	1047.4	4.95	80.17%	bright	good	2	7d
Average		1008.7	1045.6	4.81	80.88%			0.25
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

You can see what a theme clarity is becoming. Just half of these samples were clear, six from twelve. Flavour does slightly better with seven positive scores. And for the first time they get a positive average score: 0.25. How well will that rank them? We'll see.

There's a brewery making a debut appearance in this series next: Benskins. What a treat.