Barclay Perkins Porter quality 1922 - 1923

"Thank you, Ronald," I can hear you saying. "Thank you for continuing your series on draught beer quality in 1920's London.

We've now got as far as Porter. If I'm honest, the Porter analyses are the most revealing about what was happening in the London pub trade. It gives some clues as to both the state Porter and why it was in decline. You could call it the Mild Effect.

What's that? Let me explain. In the 1970's, Mild sales were falling. Dramatically falling in some regions. This decline kicked off a vicious circle. A low volume of sales, meant that it was often too old and in bad condition. Which deterred drinkers from buying, leading to even lower sales and even poorer beer quality. Eventually it wasn't worth the landlord's while to sell it any more.

The comments on flavour in the Whitbread Gravity Book tend to confirm this. To put it bluntly: there was a lot of crap Porter about in the 1920's. Why do I think poor sales were to blame? Because I can see the decline that Porter went into after WW I quite clearly in Whitbread's production figures by type.

Here's what happened with their Porter 1910 - 1929:

Output of Whitbread Porter 1910 - 1929
year	barrels brewed	Total Port	Total Ale & Porter	% of Porter/Stout	% of total
1910	108,166	361,847	850,828	29.89%	12.71%
1911	101,934	368,953	907,173	27.63%	11.24%
1912	111,239	386,734	988,981	28.76%	11.25%
1913	127,838	378,629	901,807	33.76%	14.18%
1914	123,085	382,984	900,636	32.14%	13.67%
1915	65,216	314,169	762,438	20.76%	8.55%
1916	80,298	369,130	777,127	21.75%	10.33%
1917	8,493	286,163	578,502	2.97%	1.47%
1918	7,136	110,695	413,112	6.45%	1.73%
1919	21,602	117,284	565,624	18.42%	3.82%
1920	24,910	234,413		10.63%
1921	15,688	238,623	675,647	6.57%	2.32%
1922	16,562	192,717	576,118	8.59%	2.87%
1923	14,165	169,977	505,097	8.33%	2.80%
1924	15,948	178,192	551,616	8.95%	2.89%
1925	14,943	163,932	527,977	9.12%	2.83%
1926	13,511	168,513	512,528	8.02%	2.64%
1927	10,708	149,725	462,250	7.15%	2.32%
1928	10,105	142,153	488,357	7.11%	2.07%
1929	5,558	85,779	443,888	6.48%	1.25%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/075, LMA/4453/D/01/076, LMA/4453/D/01/077, LMA/4453/D/01/078, LMA/4453/D/01/079, LMA/4453/D/01/080, LMA/4453/D/01/081 LMA/4453/D/01/082, LMA/4453/D/01/083, LMA/4453/D/01/084, LMA/4453/D/01/085, LMA/4453/D/01/086, LMA/4453/D/01/087, LMA/4453/D/01/088, LMA/4453/D/01/089, LMA/4453/D/01/090, LMA/4453/D/01/091, LMA/4453/D/01/092, LMA/4453/D/01/093, LMA/4453/D/01/094, LMA/4453/D/01/095, LMA/4453/D/09/104, LMA/4453/D/09/105, LMA/4453/D/09/106, LMA/4453/D/09/107, LMA/4453/D/09/108, LMA/4453/D/09/109, LMA/4453/D/09/110, LMA/4453/D/09/111, LMA/4453/D/09/112, LMA/4453/D/09/113, LMA/4453/D/09/114, LMA/4453/D/09/115, LMA/4453/D/09/116, LMA/4453/D/09/117, LMA/4453/D/09/118, LMA/4453/D/09/119, LMA/4453/D/09/120, LMA/4453/D/09/121, LMA/4453/D/09/122 and LMA/4453/D/09/123.

Whitbread's Porter was in surprisingly good health leading up to WW I, with sales increasing. The war put a stop to that and output of it almost dried up after 1916. It bounced back a little in 1920, then went into a steady decline.

It also seems that many Porter drinkers switched to Stout. During the war, often the Porter and Stout on offer in a pub were the same beer, the only difference being the price. After the war, standard draught Stout was similar in gravity to pre-war Porter, in the range 1052 - 1056. Switching to Stout is exactly what I would have done, if I had been able to afford it.

On with Barclay Perkins' Porter. Remember that they had been one of the great Porter breweries, and had brewed Porter for over 150 years. It's fairly typical in terms of gravity and ABV. Let's take a look at the details:

Barclay Perkins Porter quality 1922 - 1923
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Flavour	score	Price
1922	Porter	1013.2	1040.2	3.49	67.16%	Poor & thin	-2	6d
1922	Porter	1011.5	1035.5	3.10	67.61%	v fair	2	6d
1922	Porter	1010.5	1034.5	3.11	69.57%	v poor	-3	6d
1923	Porter	1012	1037.5	3.30	68.00%	fair	1	6d
1923	Porter	1010.8	1035.8	3.24	69.83%	fair	1	5d
1923	Porter	1012.5	1038	3.30	67.11%	going off	-2	6d
1923	Porter	1012.8	1039.8	3.49	67.84%	moderate	1	6d
1923	Porter	1009.8	1038.8	3.76	74.74%	v poor	-3	6d
Average		1011.6	1037.5	3.35	68.98%		-0.63
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

One thing I forgot to mention. For Porter and Stout there's no mention of clarity, presumably because of their dark colour. As you can see, the quality wasn't great. Only half get a positive score and only one of those scores higher than 1.

I can see why drinkers shunned Porter in the 1920's. It was often pretty crap. The lowered gravity wouldn't have helped. If only I had some similar information from before the war to confirm that its quality had declined. Oh well, you can't have everything.