Ind Coope bottled Pale Ales 1948 - 1960

I warned you I’d be taking a look at Ind Coope’s beers. As Double Diamond has already been mentioned, Pale Ales seem a good place to start.

It’s nice to have so many analyses of Double Diamond. And that also tells me something else: if Whitbread were so interested in it, it must have been a serious player. With a gravity in the high 1040’s, it was definitely in the class of premium Pale Ale. The sort of slot Whitbread White Shield, Bass Red Triangle and Truman’s Ben Truman fell into.

It’s interesting that the gravity went up a few points in 1950, possibly in response to a tax cut that year (from 218s 4d to 198s 5d per standard barrel). Tax went up and down a little in the 1950’s, but hovered around 200s per standard barrel. How odd then that at the same time as there was a fairly substantial cut in tax in 1960 (from 200s 9d to 157s 11d), the gravity of Double Diamond was slashed, but the price remained about the same.

If you look at the price compared to OG, you can also see that they were charging a premium for Double Diamond. It varies between 0.57 and 0.78d per gravity point, while sparkling Ale is mostly 0.50 to 0.57d. As it was heavily advertised, I guess that’s what you’d expect.

Moving on, it looks like Sparkling Ale was renamed Light Ale in the mid-1950’s. I suspect this reflects common usage. There were a variety of names for this type of beer before WW II: Dinner Ale, Light Dinner Ale, Light Sparkling Ale and many more. My guess is that the punters simply asked for Light Ale, no matter what the brewery whose pub they were in stuck on the label. At around 3% ABV, it’s pretty typical of a 1950’s Light Ale.

Ind Coope bottled Pale Ales 1948 - 1960
Date	Beer	Style	Price per pint d	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1952	Coronet Pale Ale	Pale Ale	22	0.05	1035.6	1008.6	3.50	75.84%	22  B
1948	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	26	0.05	1045.2	1009.4	4.48	79.20%	18 B
1950	Double Diamond	Pale Ale		0.06	1045.2	1011.2	4.42	75.22%	21 B
1950	Double Diamond	Pale Ale		0.05	1047.9	1012.3	4.62	74.32%	19.5 B
1950	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	29	0.05	1048.3	1010.9	4.86	77.43%	21 B
1951	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	29	0.06	1047.7	1010	4.91	79.04%	25
1953	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	33	0.05	1048.7	1009.7	5.08	80.08%	23.5
1955	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	32	0.04	1048.5	1012.7	4.65	73.81%	19
1956	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	34	0.04	1048.3	1012.7	4.62	73.71%	20
1956	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	34	0.04	1047.9	1014.1	4.38	70.56%	19
1959	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	32	0.04	1047.5	1011.9	4.62	74.95%	20
1960	Double Diamond	Pale Ale	30	0.04	1038.4	1012.4	3.36	67.71%	18
1950	John Bull Ale	Pale Ale		0.05	1042.5	1012.2	3.93	71.29%	40 + 13
1954	John Bull Ale	Pale Ale	30	0.04	1048.1	1014.8	4.31	69.23%	115
1956	Light Ale	Pale Ale	20	0.04	1031	1010.5	2.65	66.13%	22
1959	Light Ale	Pale Ale	20	0.02	1031.5	1009.8	2.81	68.89%	20
1950	Sparkling Ale	Pale Ale		0.06	1029.7	1007	2.94	76.43%	24 B
1950	Sparkling Ale	Pale Ale	15	0.06	1029.7	1007.4	2.89	75.08%	25 B
1950	Sparkling Ale	Pale Ale	18	0.03	1033.3	1007.7	3.32	76.88%	22 B
1951	Sparkling Ale	Pale Ale	18	0.05	1032.1	1008	3.12	75.08%	25.5
1951	Sparkling Ale	Pale Ale	18	0.05	1032.6	1007.6	3.24	76.69%	21
1954	Sparkling Ale	Pale Ale	24	0.04	1030.5	1008.5	2.85	72.13%	26
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

Coronet Pale Ale I take to be a bottled version of their ordinary Bitter. Whether from the Burton or Romford brewery, I’m not sure. Double Diamond, obviously, was from Burton.

Looking at the numbers, I wonder if I’ve got John Bull classified correctly. It’s quite a dark brown in colour, darker than most Milds. Was it really Double Diamond coloured up with caramel? Brewers loved doing that sort of thing.

I’ll be finishing off Ind Coope’s bottled beers next time. Before moving on to the draught beers.