Kent Beers in 1902

Doing one of my random searches of the British Newspaper Archive a fascinating page of adverts.

It's from a local paper and features advertisements from three breweries from the immediate vicinity. What fascinates me are the similarities and differences between the three brewery's ranges.

The only beer common to all three is my old favourite, AK. Tomson & Wotton even brewed two AKs, presumably at different strengths because the prices are different. Slightly weird to see an AK described as East India Pale Ale. Light Bitter, which how the other two breweries describe it, is more usual.

Shepherd Neame and Tomson & Wotton also both have a beer called KK as their strongest Pale Ale. While Rigden's is called XXK. Though that is another way of writing KK. The london breweries originally called their Stock Ales XXK, XXXK and XXXK, before switching over to KK, KKK and KKKK. At 60s, Shep's KK was a very expensive beer. That's about the same as you'd pay for a barrel of Bass Pale Ale, a beer that commanded a high price.

I'm sure Tomson & Wotton brewed a Mild, even though it isn't mentioned in their advert. Odd that the other two breweries both call theirs Mild Beer rather than the more standard Mild Ale. Note that both only have a single beer described as Mild.

I was surprised to see that the two Faversham breweries produced both Table Ale and Table Beer. Table anything was pretty rare in England by this point. It had long been dropped by the big London brewers. The examples here must have been pretty low gravity as they're under 30s per barrel. At that price, they's have to be under 1040º.

Porter was already starting to die out in the provinces by this time. Though it seems to have clung on longer in the Southeast, possibly because of the proximity to London. Porter remained popular in the capital longer than elsewhere.

There's only one Strong Ale, Rigden's XXX. Which I'm guessing is a Stock Ale rather than a Stock Pale Ale.

Kent Beers in 1902
Brewery	Place	year	beer	price per barrel (s)	price per gallon (d)
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	Stock KK India Pale Ale	60	20
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	East India Pale Ale, No. 1	48	16
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	East India Pale Ale, No. 2	36	12
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	East India Pale Ale, AK	34	11.33
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	Mild Beer	36	12
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	Table Ale	28	9.33
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	Table Beer	24	8
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	Stout	50	16.67
Shepherd Neame	Faversham	1902	Porter	36	12
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	XXK Bitter Ale	50	16.67
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	SA Special Ale	42	14
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	AK Light Bitter Ale	36	12
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	XXX Stock Ale	58	19.33
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	X Mild Beer	36	12
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	TA Table Ale	28	9.33
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	TB Table Beer	22	7.33
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	DBS Double Brown Stout	53	17.67
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	Nourishing Stout	48	16
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	P Porter	36	12
Tomson & Wotton	Ramsgate	1902	AK Light Bitter Ale	30	10
Tomson & Wotton	Ramsgate	1902	AK Light Bitter Ale	36	12
Tomson & Wotton	Ramsgate	1902	AKK Pale Ale	42	14
Tomson & Wotton	Ramsgate	1902	KK Pale Ale	48	16
Source:
Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald - Saturday 06 December 1902, page 1.