That's the glory of a blog. There's no editor looking over your shoulder. You're 100% on your own. Which is the way I like it. I hate being told what to do.
Getting back to the topic of this post, these are beers which I'm pretty sure were on sale in the UK. The ones with a price listed, almost certainly so. Though all are some sort of Pale Laager, there's a fair amount of variation in strength.
The two examples at just over 1030º were definitely specifically brewed for the UK market. No-one in Germany drank Lager that weak. The ones at 1040-1042º couldn't have been for the German market, either. There was a gap in the tax gravity bands between 9º and 11º Plato (approximately 1036º-1044º. so those must be some sort of beer for export.
It's interesting to see so many examples of Holsten. A little later - in the 1970s and 1980s - Holsten was a big brand in the UK. I wonder if that was because they'd got into the UK market early?
| Lager brewed in Germany 1952 - 1963 | ||||||||
| Year | Brewer | Beer | Price | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation | colour |
| 1957 | Dortmunder Union | Pilsener | 47 | 1042.8 | 1007.4 | 4.61 | 82.71% | 8 |
| 1963 | Dortmunder Union | Pilsner | 44 | 1042 | 1006.7 | 4.41 | 84.05% | 9 |
| 1952 | Dressler | Lager | 1051.8 | 1009.4 | 5.53 | 81.85% | 6.5 | |
| 1963 | Elbschloss | Ratsherrn Lager | 48 | 1030.5 | 1006.3 | 3.03 | 79.34% | 13 |
| 1961 | Hackerbräu | Hackerbräu Light | 66 | 1051.7 | 1014.5 | 4.65 | 71.95% | 8 |
| 1957 | Holsten | Holsten Pilsner | 1044.7 | 1007.4 | 4.86 | 83.45% | 8 | |
| 1957 | Holsten | Holsten Pilsner | 42 | 1044.7 | 1008.2 | 4.75 | 81.66% | 8 |
| 1961 | Holsten | Holsten Lager | 40 | 1044.1 | 1008.1 | 4.50 | 81.63% | 7 |
| 1961 | Holsten | Pilsner Lager | 40 | 1045.5 | 1000.8 | 5.59 | 98.24% | 7 |
| 1963 | Holsten | Pilsner | 44 | 1046.1 | 1006.7 | 4.92 | 85.47% | 6 |
| 1957 | Löwenbräu | Pale Bock | 51 | 1061.9 | 1014.3 | 6.20 | 76.90% | 6 |
| 1961 | Patzenhofer | Patz Lager | 42 | 1041 | 1007.5 | 4.36 | 81.71% | 7.5 |
| 1959 | St. Paul | B.B. Lager | 1030.7 | 1010.3 | 2.64 | 66.45% | 7 | |
| 1950 | Tucher | Tucher Pils Lager | 1055.1 | 1014.4 | 5.29 | 73.87% | 15 | |
| Source: | ||||||||
| Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001. | ||||||||
All of the beers were hideously expensive. To put things into perspective, you could get a pint of Truman's bottled Light Ale for 20d. That's a beer, at 1031.8º slightly stronger than Ratsherrn Lager, for less than half the price. I'm not sure I understand why anyone would voluntarily pay more than double the price for their beer.
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3 comments:
Holsten had always had close ties to the UK, I guess because of the historical trade between Hamburg and London. They bought the Union Brewery, Point Pleasant, Wandsworth in 1902 (I think?) but was liquidated in 1920. Here's a flagon of theirs : https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/holsten-brewery-wandsworth-sw-london-485587455
Holsten Pils was the first of the premium lagers to be imported after WWII, starting in 1952 so they were well established by this point.
As for why young men choose the more expensive option in beer or cars compared to the "sensible" option - ask a peacock! Whenever men do something apparently irrational, it's usually an attempt to impress the girls...
From my memories of the 1970s, Holsten was sold in UK pubs as a "diabetic / diet / lo carb" lager back in the days before diabetic diet lo carb. As some of those very low FGs attest.
Those were also the days before Stella and Lamot came on keg and a Holsten was usually the only way of getting an authentic strong Euro lager in most pubs.
This extreme premium pricing continued until very recently – I can remember a half pint bottle of Beck’s costing around the same as a pint of draught beer.
In the 1980s "pils" was a definite category of its own in British pubs. Didn't seem to have anything to do with the hop character either. It just meant a strong, bottled lager, probably with a yellow label. Holsten was the market leader but there were also Satzenbrau, LCL (from the Federation), Kaltenberg, depending on who supplied the pub. That seems to have pretty much vanished.
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