Whitbread Porter and Stout hops in 1939

A large percentage of the hops came from Whitbread’s own hop gardens. It wasn’t unusual for large breweries. Fellow London brewer Truman, for example. also grew their own hops. The in-house hops were mostly either pretty fresh or hand been cold-stored. The small quantity of Kent hops bought in were fresh, too.

Lublin would have been the most likely source of the Polish hops, which were also from the most recent harvest. They would be the last Polish hops exported for a while.

Old Continentals is about as vague as you can get. Old implies at least three seasons old. And quite likely longer than that. Being vague about the source also implies hops of not the greatest quality. Who knows exactly what they were. Old crap.

CS, in case you were wondering, indicates hops which had been kept in a cold store. Which would drastically slow the decline in alpha and beta acids.

Whitbread Porter and Stout hops in 1939
Beer	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3	hop 4	hop 5
P	Whitb. MK 1936 CS	Whitb. MK 1937	Whitb. MK 1938	Polish 1938	Old Continentals
LS	Whitb. MK 1936 CS	Whitb. MK 1937	Whitb. MK 1938	Polish 1938	Old Continentals
LOS	Whitb. MK 1936 CS	Whitb. MK 1937	Whitb. MK 1938	Polish 1938	Old Continentals
MS	Kent 1938	Whitb. MK 1937 CS	Hallertau 1935
ES	Whitb. MK 1936 CS	Whitb. MK 1937	Whitb. MK 1938	Polish 1938	Old Continentals
SSS	Kent 1938	Whitb. MK 1937 CS	Hallertau 1935
Source:
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/126.