Labatt beers in 1893 (part two)

There’s nothing I love better than part two of a post. Unless it’s part forty. I love me them long series. How many have I never quite completed?

I had some tables that would have clogged up the first part a little too much. I never thought I’d say this, but sometimes a piece can include too many tables. I don’t want to all confuse your little brain things. If it’s anything like mine, it’ll struggle to cling onto one thought for two minutes, let alone several.

There is some didactic point to what I’m writing here. We’ll be looking at numbers for the output of our two London breweries, Whitbread and Labatt, to see what they tell us about the difference in the beer market in the UK and Canada. Because the big seller was very different.

First let’s take a look at Labatt’s output by style:

Totals year ending 31st Aug 1894
beer	style	barrels brewed	% of total
Pale	Pale Ale	3,863	16.23%
ES	Stock Ale	160	0.67%
EIP	IPA	17,613	74.00%
total Ale		21,636	90.90%
BS	Stout	2,165.50	9.10%
total		23,802
Source:
Labatt brewing record document number A08-054-1156

Three-quarters of what Labatt brewed was IPA. There isn’t a single brewery in the UK – not even in Burton-on-Trent – where the percentage would have been anything like that high in that period. I doubt there was a brewery where all the Pale Ales together made up 50% of output.

In the 12 months covered by the records, there was only a single brew of ES. It clearly wasn’t a particularly popular type of beer. Labatt’s other two beer, Pale and Brown Stout, were brewed reasonably regularly.

Now let’s look at Whitbread.

Whitbread output in 1893
Beer	barrels brewed	% of total
X	247,285	54.06%
XK	3,230	0.71%
KK	4,632	1.01%
KKK	2,050	0.45%
2KKK	1,593	0.35%
PA	11,629	2.54%
2PA	13,250	2.90%
FA	23,105	5.05%
Total Ale	306,774	67.07%
P	80,067	17.50%
C	39,543	8.64%
SS	17,355	3.79%
SSS	13,679	2.99%
Total Porter	150,644	32.93%
Total Ale & Porter	457,418
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/059 and LMA/4453/D/09/087.

Two beers sold far more than the others: standard Mild (X Ale) and Porter (P). If you include Country Porter (C) they come to 80% of the total. While Whitbread brewed many more beers than Labatt, most were only in small quantities. The combined output of all three Stock Ales (KK, 2KKK and KKK) was under 2% of the total. The two Stouts couldn’t manage 7% between them. The three Pale Ales (FA, 2PA and PA) did a little better, with over 10%.

In provincial breweries, the proportion of Porter and Stout would have been lower. A third is very high. But it’s easily explained by Whitbread’s history as a Porter brewer and a continued high demand for Black Beer in the capital.

To summarise, Whitbread brewed large quantities of Mild and Porter, a reasonable amount of Bitter, rather less Stout and bugger all Stock Ale. While Labatt brewed loads of Pale Ale, mostly IPA, some Stout and virtually no Stock Ale. You’ll agree that although both were still brewing British-derived styles, the emphasis on particular types was quite different.

One last table to end. Taken from totals in the brewing log. They don’t quite match mine, but have some other interesting information:

Labatt Totals year ending 31st Aug 1894
Bushels pale malt	40,627
Bushels patent malt	400
total malt	41,027
lbs hops used	48,045.5
barrels ale	21,649.8
barrels Brown Stout & Porter	2,165.5
total barrels	23,815.3
Old Ale and Brown Stout mixed	149.5
total Ale, Brown Stout and Porter brewed 1893-1894	23,665.8
Source:
Labatt brewing record document number A08-054-1156

A final point. Note the difference in scale between the two breweries: Whitbread 457,418 barrels, Labatt 23,802 barrels.