It's the Perfect Ale

I guess lots of you agree, seeing as that spells out IPA. As it does in this advert from 1950:

Banbury Guardian - Thursday 23 March 1950, page 2.

What was that beer like? How strong was it? What colour? They're the questions I always asked when I was adverts like this. I never expected to get answers. But I did. Thank Whitbread.

The Whitbread Gravity Book is one of the most valuable sources on 20th-century UK brewing. Without its thousands of ananlyses, I'd have no idea - and no possibility of ever discovering - the details of the beers from brewery's whose records are lost.

The colour numbers in the Gravity Book are particularly helpful. Brewers mostly didn't record the colour in their brewing records. Nor all the colouring sugars they added post-fermentation. Many of the recipes in my new book came out way paler than the Gravity Book analysis. I've adjusted the recipes accordingly.

Multiple sources. Combining them to make something greater than their simple sum is my ultimate joy.

Here are those NBC beer details:

Northampton Brewery beers 1948 - 1952
Year	Beer	Style	Price per pint d	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1948	Brown Ale	Brown Ale	18	1032.4	1008.4	3.11	74.07%	150
1950	IPA	IPA		1046.2	1012.4	4.39	73.16%	24
1950	PA	Pale Ale		1035.2	1007.8	3.56	77.84%	32
1952	Jumbo Stout	Stout	18	1037.8	1016.8	2.70	55.56%	100
1952	Brown Ale	Brown Ale	18	1038	1013	3.23	65.79%	200
1949	Pale Ale	Pale Ale	15	1033.4	1008.1	3.28	75.75%	28
Source:
Whitbread Gravity Book document LMA/4453/D/02/002 held at the London Metropolitan Archives