Brewing in the 1950’s – British barley

I’ve an idea. Let’s look at barley for a while rather than hops. Since my visit to John Innes in January, I’ve become much more interested in barley varieties.

Here’s an overview of the types of malting barley grown around the world:

“As far as barley suitable for malting is concerned, it can be stated that all the varieties grown in the British Isles are two-rowed; two-rowed barleys are also grown in Australia, Ouchak and Chile, while six-rowed varieties are grown in California, Australia, Morocco, Smyrna and Chile, as well as in some other countries. Prior to the 1939 war considerable quantities of foreign six-rowed barleys were used by British brewers, mainly from California and Chile, as well as some Chilean two-rowed. Due to the sunnier and more equable climates of these countries as compared with the British climate these barleys were more uniform in quality and this was of distinct advantage to the maltster. Further, the coarser husk of the six-rowed varieties tended to give a better filtration in the mash tun and to prevent those filtration troubles caused by the too-close packing of the undissolved parts of the malt (known to the brewer as grains'), which form the medium through which the solution containing the extractable materials is filtered off. In fact most brewers used from 30% upwards of Californian or other similar foreign malt and many brewers considered that they could not brew satisfactorily without them. However, experience dining and since the war has shown that present-day beers can be satisfactorily brewed from all British malt.”
"Brewing Theory and Practice" by E. J. Jeffery, 1956, page 129.

British brewers had this thing about Californian malt and got most upset when it was unobtainable during the two world wars. But the last one seems to have weaned them off it.

He’s right in saying loads of six-row barley was imported before WW II. That’s very clear from brewing records. Britain at the time produced way too little barley for its own needs. But that all changed during WW II, when there was a massive increase in barley production. As this table shows:

UK barley production and imports 1938 - 1960
Year ended Dec. 31.	Acreage.	Estimated Product Quarters (400 lbs.).	Average Price per Quarter.	Barley. Imports.	% homegrown
1938	988,000	18,080,000	10 2	19,876,000	47.63%
1939	1,013,000	17,840,000	8 10	13,740,000	56.49%
1940	1,339,000	22,080,000	18 2	9,146,000	70.71%
1941	1,475,000	22,880,000	24 0	1,277,000	94.71%
1942	1,528,000	28,920,000	45 8	0	100.00%
1943	1,786,000	32,900,000	31 5	0	100.00%
1944	1,973,000	35,040,000	26 5	0	100.00%
1945	2,215,000	42,160,000	24 5	2,037,000	95.39%
1946	2,211,000	39,260,000	24 3	2,195,000	94.71%
1947	2,060,000	32,380,000	24 0	2,257,000	93.48%
1948	2,082,000	40,540,000	26 10	15,618,000	72.19%
1949	2,060,000	42,580,000	25 10	9,223,000	82.20%
1950	1,778,000	34,220,000	27 11	15,289,000	69.12%
1951	1,908,000	38,780,000	38 10	24,270,000	61.51%
1952	2,281,000	46,680,000	32 7	22,641,000	67.34%
1953	2,226,000	50,420,000	30 1	28,702,000	63.72%
1954	2,063,000	44,880,000	25 9	18,602,000	70.70%
1955	2,295,000	58,720,000	26 0	18,554,000	75.99%
1956	2,323,000	56,000,000	25 8	16,215,000	77.55%
1957	2,622,000	59,140,000	23 2	20,168,000	74.57%
1958	2,755,000	63,400,000	22 11	26,504,000	70.52%
1959	3,057,000	80,320,000	22 7	19,939,000	80.11%
1960	3,372,000	84,820,000	21 3	14,083,000	85.76%
Source:
1971 Brewers' Almanack, page 61.

This can’t have all been barley for brewing. Slightly less beer was brewed in 1954 than 1938, while the total amount of barley both home grown and imported had grown significantly, from just under 38 million  quarters to 63.5 million.

It’s clear from this next table that only a small percentage of barley was used in brewing:

Malt use in brewing 1938 - 1959
Year	cwt. Malt	qtrs. malt	bulk barrels
1938	9,378,888	3,126,296	24,339,360
1939	9,884,803	3,294,934	25,691,217
1940	9,857,838	3,285,946	24,925,704
1941	10,988,413	3,662,804	28,170,582
1942	10,918,102	3,639,367	29,584,656
1943	10,287,322	3,429,107	29,811,321
1944	10,621,168	3,540,389	31,380,684
1945	10,435,212	3,478,404	31,990,334
1946	9,976,998	3,325,666	31,066,950
1947	9,454,253	3,151,418	30,103,180
1948	9,499,794	3,166,598	28,813,725
1949	9,087,351	3,029,117	26,744,457
1950	9,094,097	3,031,366	25,339,062
1951	9,282,152	3,094,051	24,870,564
1952	9,312,437	3,104,146	25,285,589
1953	9,085,688	3,028,563	24,789,130
1954	8,629,252	2,876,417	24,153,387
1955	8,635,522	2,878,507	24,324,623
1956	8,630,145	2,876,715	24,187,096
1957	8,872,468	2,957,489	24,839,755
1958	8,642,500	2,880,833	24,129,462
1959	8,885,364	2,961,788	25,023,044
Sources:
1955 Brewers' Almanack, page 62
1971 Brewers' Almanack, page 54

“At the time of revision (1956) increasing quantities of Australian Cape barley (6 rowed) are coming into the country again, but even so, beer in Britain is still brewed mainly from malts made from barleys grown in Britain.”
"Brewing Theory and Practice" by E. J. Jeffery, 1956, page 129. 

You can see in the table that barley imports had risen from zero in the final war years to about their pre-war level by the mid-1950’s. But I don’t see foreign barley mentioned in brewing records.

Taking Whitbread as an example, in 1938 all their Ales contained malt made from Californian barley. About a third of malt in the case of Bitter and IPA, 15% for Mild. While their Porter and Stout had about 5% malt from Ouchak barley from Turkey. In 1954, when barley imports were at pre-war levels, there’s no foreign barley in any of their beers.*

After WW II British beer was being brewed mostly from British ingredients for the first time since the mid-19th century. Until the British hop industry collapsed in the 1980’s.





* Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/121, LMA/4453/D/01/121, LMA/4453/D/09/125 and LMA/4453/D/09/133.