Shepherd Neame beers in 1940

Some random beers from the early part of WW II. I have to do something with those records I snapped in Faversham.

I’ll admit straight up that I’m not totally sure about the styles that I’ve assigned to the beers. SXX could be a Strong Ale.  LDA – I assume that stands for Light Dinner Ale – I would guess was their Light Ale. BB looks like a 6d Bitter, but I’m not totally sure. The main reason that I’ve assumed they’re all Pale Ales is that they were parti-gyled together. Though that by no means definitely makes them Pale Ales.

I really wish I’d been able to find a Shepherd Neame price list from this period. It might explain a lot. The Whitbread Gravity Book entries don’t help. They have a Shepherd Neame X Ale at 1038º. The only beer that looks like that is BB, which I’ve assumed is a Pale Ale.

The standard Mild is pretty weak. It’s more 4d Ale than X Ale. Pretty watery. Though Shepherd Neame seems to have been very much a Pale Ale brewery.

It’s unusual that they still brewed two Stouts. Though neither is that Stout. SS being particularly puny. To put the two Stouts into context, Guinness Extra Stout was around 1055º at the time.

The strongest beer, SXX was brewed in pretty small batch sizes. Just 20 barrels or so. While BB and MB were brewed 200 or 300 barrels at a time.

Next we’ll be looking at the grists.

Shepherd Neame beers in 1940
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	Pitch temp
MB	Mild	1030.5	1006.1	3.22	80.00%	4.00	0.46	62º F
LDA	Pale Ale	1030.0	1006.6	3.09	77.84%	6.76	0.75	62.25º F
AK	Pale Ale	1030.5	1005.3	3.33	82.73%	6.70	0.78	62.25º F
BB	Pale Ale	1038.2	1007.8	4.03	79.71%	6.89	1.00	62.5º F
PA	Pale Ale	1047.0	1012.2	4.61	74.07%	8.77	1.77	62.25º F
SXX	Pale Ale	1055.4	1015.5	5.28	72.00%	6.89	1.45	62.75º F
SS	Stout	1030.5	1008.9	2.86	70.91%	6.73	0.83	62.5º F
DS	Stout	1044.9	1016.3	3.77	63.58%	6.73	1.23	62.5º F
Source:
Shepherd Neame brewing record held at the brewery.