Whitbread Porter quality 1922

The day has finally arrived. I'm at the end of the Porter analyses. When did I start this? Was it 1984 or 1985?

I'm going to structure things slightly differently this time. Because I have the relevant brewing records of Whitbread Porter from 1922. Funnily enough, they make things more rather than less confusing. A quick comparison of the gravities in the two tables will explain what I mean.

Clearly Whitbread's Porter wasn't being sold as brewed. The gravity of the pub sample is six points higher than when it went into the fermenter. There are two possible explanations. Either it was primed like hell at racking time, or it was blended with another beer. The jump in gravity seems far too high for primings to be the explanation. I'd be inclined to go for the blending option. And there is an obvious candidate: CS, Country Stout, which had a gravity of 1046. A 50 - 50 blend of the two would get you around the gravity of the pub sample.

There's just one slight problem with that theory. As the Porter was already being parti-gyled with CS, why not just get the gravity right before fermentation? The only reason I can think of not to do this is if the weaker version was being sold straight somewhere. I'm really a bit stumped with this one.

As you can see, this is an Oatmeal Porter. Though with the laughably small amount of oats typical of London brewers. At less than 1% of the grist, its flavour contribution must have been nil. Not that it was marketed as Oatmeal Porter. The oats are in there for COS, Country Oatmeal Stout, one of the beers in the parti-gyle. It was, in fact, exactly the same as Country Stout.

Whitbread Porter 1922
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	colour
18th May	1922	1027.9	1007.0	2.77	74.95%	6.99	0.85	1.5	1.83	64º	14.5 brown 1 red
7th Apr	1922	1028.1	1008.0	2.66	71.52%	6.93	0.84	1.5	1.75	64º	14 brown 1 red
7th Jul	1922	1027.8	1007.0	2.75	74.78%	7.39	0.88	?	1.75	64º	14 brown 1 red
17th Jul	1922	1028.0	1007.0	2.78	75.00%	7.42	0.93	1.5	1.75	64º	13 brown 1 red
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/115 and LMA/4453/D/09/116.

Whitbread Porter 1922
Date	Year	OG	FG	pale malt	brown malt	black malt	no. 3 sugar	oats
18th May	1922	1027.9	1007.0	63.96%	13.58%	13.58%	8.30%	0.57%
7th Apr	1922	1028.1	1008.0	63.12%	14.11%	14.11%	7.92%	0.74%
7th Jul	1922	1027.8	1007.0	63.96%	14.15%	13.02%	8.30%	0.57%
17th Jul	1922	1028.0	1007.0	63.96%	14.15%	13.02%	8.30%	0.57%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/115 and LMA/4453/D/09/116.

The grist is pretty simple and quite like a late 19th-century one: pale, brown and black malt plus No. 3 invert sugar. About the only unusual feature is the high percentage of black malt. It's odd to see as much black as brown malt. Typically, the quantity of brown malt would be considerably greater than that of black malt. That was certainly the case at Whitbread before WW I.

Time to review Whitbread's performance so far. Whitbread had two Milds in the ring, full-strength X Ale and watery MA. Surprisingly their MA scored quite well, finishing fourth of seventeen with an average of 0.67. While X Ale was a disappointing twelfth, averaging -0.2. Their Burton performed very well finishing first of fourteen and averaging 1.33. Their Pale Ale did even better, coming first of fifteen with an average of 2.25. Though it should be noted that the sample sizes were much smaller for Whitbread's beers.

Let's take a look at how their Porter did:

Whitbread Porter quality 1922
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Flavour	score	Price
1922	Porter	1012.2	1034.7	2.91	64.84%	exceptionally good	3	6d
1922	Porter	1010.2	1033.7	3.04	69.73%	thin, sound	-1	6d
1922	Porter	1013.2	1035.7	2.91	63.03%	v . fair	2	6d
Average		1011.9	1034.7	2.95	65.87%		1.33
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

They got the only perfect three score of any of the Porters. Only one of the samples was a bit duff and got a negative score, leaving a good average of 1.33. But there were only three samples, leaving plenty of room for distortion.

Next time I'll be rounding up Porter with a look at the full league table. That'll be fun. Well, probably not, but I have to remain upbeat, no matter how achingly dull my posts are.