Truman Brick Lane gravities 1925 - 1933

As promised, I'm now taking a look at Truman's beers themselves. Based on information in document B/THB/C/256c.

This wasn't Truman's full beer range. Their brewery in Burton provided all of the posher Pale Ales and Burton Ales, including Barley Wine.

The Pale Ales they brewed in London, LK (London Keeper) and BLK (its bottled form), were really more like Light Ales.

In 1925, their range was this, in terms of styles:

2 Pale Ales
2 Mild Ales
1 Strong Ale
1 Porter
5 Stouts

What's odd about that? Do you remember the breakdown of Truman output by Ales and Stouts? In 1925, just 28% of Brick Lane's output was Stout. Yet there were more different types of Ale brewed than Stout. The inevitable conclusion is that some of the Stouts must have been brewed in pretty small quantities.

In 1933 just under 44,000 barrels of Stout were brewed, but there were seven different types. Meaning, on average, a bit over 6,000 barrels were brewed of each type. While in the same year 240,000 barrels were brewed of 9 types of Ale, an average of over 26,000 barrels of each type.

You can clearly see the fault line of Snowden's 1931 emergency budget again. The gravity of every beer in the range fell between 1931 and 1932. Except for those which were discontinued or appeared in that year.

Notable changes are the replacement of X by the weaker LM (though X did reappear the following year). Considering X was probably their biggest-selling beer, that's quite a significant move. A weaker Brown Ale was introduced, one that's obviously a bottled version of the weak Mild A. The name, NBA, stands for Nut Brown Ale. Sp. A looks like another draught variation of A, quite possibly coloured differently at racking time. Barclay Perkins introduced a very dark version of their Ale around this time.

Over on the Stout side, Stout was split into two differently-priced versions and the two versions of CS replaced by a single, weaker one.

What else have I learned? That Truman started brewing a Brown Ale in 1926. And that it was stronger than their strongest Mild Ale. Though I do know that it was parti-gyled with it. How do I know that? From another dead handy document. One that we'll be looking at soon.

Truman Brick Lane gravities 1925 - 1933
Beer	Style	1925	1926	1927	1928	1929	1930	1931	1932	1933
BLK	Pale Ale	1040.0	1040.0	1040.0	1039.8	1039.8	1039.8	1039.8	1036.4	1036.4
LK	Pale Ale	1029.2	1029.2	1029.2	1029.3	1029.3	1029.1	1029.2	1028.4	1028.4
SA	Strong Ale	1056.2	1055.8	1055.8	1055.9	1055.7	1055.7	1055.6	1049.2	1047.5
X	Mild	1043.0	1043.1	1043.0	1042.9	1042.8	1042.7	1042.9		1039.5
LM	Mild								1034.8	1034.8
BA	Brown Ale		1044.6	1044.8	1044.8	1044.7	1044.7	1044.8	1041.7	1041.7
A	Mild	1029.4	1029.4	1029.4	1029.5	1029.4	1029.5	1029.6	1028.4	1028.4
Sp. A	Mild								1028.4	1028.4
NBA	Brown Ale								1028.4	1028.4
Stock IDS	Stout	1083.7	1083.6	1095.4
BS	Stout	1058.4	1058.5	1058.3	1058.4	1058.7	1058.8	1059.0	1053.7	1053.7
St.	Stout	1050.1	1050.2	1050.2	1050.2	1050.3	1050.1	1050.5
St. 8d	Stout								1047.8	1047.8
St. 7d	Stout								1040.9	1040.9
CS Town	Stout	1044.8	1047.1	1046.7	1046.3	1048.5	1049.1	1049.0
CS Country	Stout		1044.3			1045.4	1045.3	1045.3
CS B									1038.9	1038.9
R	Porter	1037.4	1037.5	1037.5	1037.4	1037.2	1037.2	1037.1	1035.3	1035.3
SS	Stout	1054.5	1054.7	1054.6	1054.4	1054.5	1054.8	1054.8	1050.3	1050.3
Scotch St.	Stout		1058.4
RDS	Stout									1044.5
Source:
Document B/THB/C/256c held at the London Metropolitan Archives