London Brown Ale before WW II

Most Brown Ales in the capital were brewed as either 7d or 8d beers. Being bottled, these were the equivalent of 6d and 7d draught beers. And implying an OG of around 1037º and 1042º, respectively. Or about the same as Mild and Best Mild.

One exception is Whitbread’s Double Brown which, at 1054.5º, was quite a bit stronger than its rivals and in the 9d per pint class. And, in contrast to many other Brown Ales, it wasn’t a tweaked version of a Mild Ale recipe.

Another outlier is Watney’s XX Brown Ale. For a start, it’s not very brown with a colour value of just 23. That’s like a Bitter. The price is also lower, for the simple reason that it’s the only draught beer in the set. I’m not really sure why it was called a Brown Ale, as it doesn’t really seem to fit the definition of the style.

The degree of attenuation, with the exception of Lovibond and Meux, was pretty poor. And, intriguingly, poorer than for Mild Ale. This implies to me that a degree of sweetness was deliberately being left in Brown Ale. As a filtered beer it was far easier to leave unfermented material than in cask-conditioned Mild which would continue to referment.

Oddly enough, the average OG of this set, 1042º, is almost exactly the same as average OG in the UK in the 1930s.

London Brown Ale before WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1938	Barclay Perkins	Brown Ale	8	1046.8	1018.9	3.60	59.62%
1938	Charrington	Brown Ale	7	1036.6	1013	3.05	64.48%	115
1937	Courage	Nut Brown Ale	8	1040.7
1938	Hammerton	Nut Brown Ale	6.5	1039.9	1012.6	3.53	68.42%
1938	Lovibond	Brown Ale	7	1042.6	1006.4	4.72	84.98%	90
1938	Mann	Brown Ale	8	1041.7	1012	3.85	71.22%	82
1938	Meux	Brown Ale	7	1039.3	1007.4	4.15	81.17%	100
1938	Taylor Walker	Brown Ale	7	1035.1	1013.2	2.83	62.39%	90
1938	Truman	Brown Ale	8	1042.4	1013.3	3.77	68.63%	110
1938	Watney	Brown Ale	7	1041.1	1013.6	3.56	66.91%	90
1938	Watney	XX Brown Ale	6	1043.4	1015.6	3.59	64.06%	23
1937	Wenlock	Nut Brown Ale	7	1042.5	1011	4.09	74.12%
1939	Whitbread	Double Brown	9	1054.5	1018	4.73	66.97%	105
	Average		7.35	1042.0	1012.9	3.79	69.41%	89.44
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252.