Friday 30 November 2018

Other Bass draught beers after WW II

Following on from my post about other (than IPA) bottled Bass beers after WW II, here are their other draught beers. Hopefully there's at least one of you who finds this crap interesting.

It's not the most captivating set of beers I've ever seen. A couple of Milds and the rest Keg Bitters. I guess that's what they were brewing in Bass's Burton brewery back then. Well sort of.

Splitting apart Bass and Worthington at this point is tricky. I don't really know how the two Milds were branded. They could well have been sold under the Worthington name. The two breweries had merged between the wars and, especially in the post-war period, had a habit of selling the same beer under both brands, just with a different name. White Shield and Bass Red Triangle, for example.

It looks to me as if the same was going on with Bass Keg and Worthington E. The gravities are suspiciously similar.

The 1950 Mild Ale is exceptionally strong for that date. It looks more like a pre-war Best Mild. The colour, interestingly, is semi-dark. Which was still quite a common colour for Mild just after the war.

Maybe it was different in Stoffordshire, but I can't recall ever coming across a Burton-brewed Mild from Bass back in the 1970s and 1980s. Draught Bass and White Shield were common in Bass Charrington pubs all over the country, but Mild tended to be sourced from a more local brewery. In Yorkshire that meant XXXX Mild from Tadcaster. In the West Midlands, M & B Mild from Birmingham.

Worthington beers next. Should I be in an arsing moood.

Other Bass draught beers after WW II
Year Beer Style Price per pint OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation colour
1950 Mild Ale Mild 15 1041.4 1008 4.34 80.68% 40
1977 Light Mild Mild 1033.1
1960 Worthington "E" Pale Ale 18 1041.8 1006.5 4.60 84.45%
1967 Bass Keg Pale Ale 28 1038 1007 4.03 81.58% 23
1972 Worthington E Pale Ale 16 1037.8 1007.1 4.00 81.22%
1977 Worthington Best Bitter Pale Ale 1036
1977 Joules Bitter Pale Ale 1035
Sources:
Which Beer Report, 1960, pages 171 - 173.
Daily Mirror July 10th 1972, page 15
Good Beer Guide 1978
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

4 comments:

Matt said...

The pub where I regularly drink Draught Bass, the Unicorn in Manchester city centre, had until a few years ago a keg font for Bass XXXX Mild, although I can't remember anyone ever ordering it.

Ilkley Rob said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ron Pattinson said...

Ikley Rob,

I'm talking about the Mild in Bass pubs. Obviously you wouldn't have seen Websters or Tetleys in a Bass pub.

Mike Austin said...

Ron,
Thanks!
Mike