Barclay Perkins Gravities in November 1922

When visiting archives, I mostly concentrate on brewing records. But there's all sorts of other material, some of it packed with goodies.

I got into a routine of always photographing one document which wasn't a brewing book on every visit. Which is why I have pictures of something called "Brewing notebook A-H", A.H. presumably being the initials of a brewer.

It's packed with all sorts of handy stuff: the control prices of barley in WW II, Bass wholesale prices in 1920, the cost price of BBS Export from 1912 to 1919, barrels brewed 1913 to 1955, coal usage 1905 to 1955, brewing materials used 1920 to 1945, quantity of finings per beer in 1921, the price paid for spent grains 1902 to 1952 and much more.

I was having a look through it yesterday in the hope of finding details of the configuration of the brew house. To be specific, the number of mash tuns and coppers they had. I wanted to see how bad the bomb damage was in September 1940, when the brew house took a couple of hits.

 I didn't find that, buy I did come across this very useful table , which shows the gravities of all their beers, plus details of the primings and their effect.

Barclay Perkins Gravities in November 1922
Price	minimum Regulation Gravity	Mark	Brewed Gravity	Sweet added	Original Gravity Actual	Declared Gravity	Original Gravity according to Declared Gravities
5d	1027	Ale 5d	1030.2	1 qrt @ 1130	1030.8	1029	1029.6
6d	1033	XLK(C)	1034.2	NIL	1034.2	1033	1033
6d	1033	TT	1034.2	6 qrts @ 1130	1038.1	1033	1037
7d	1039	XLK(B)	1040.2	NIL	1040.2	1039	1039
7d	1039	X	1041.4	3 qrts @ 1130	1044	1041	1042.83
8d	1046	Lager Home	1045.2	NIL	1045.2	1044	1044
8d	1046	XLK(T)	1047.2	NIL	1047.2	1046	1046
8d	1046	L.S.	1047.2	3 qrts @ 1130	1048	1046	1047.7
8d	1046	O.M.S.	1051.2	3 qrts @ 1130	1052.8	1050	1051.6
9d	1054	B.S. (T)	1055.2	4 qrts @ 1130	1957.2	1054	1056
9d	1054	R.N.S.	1055.2	3 qrts @ 1130	1056.7	1054	1055.5
9d	1054	K.K.	1055.2	1 qrt @ 1130	1044.7	1054	1054.5
9d	1054	IBS	1061.2	3 qrts @ 1130	1062.6	1060	1061.4
9d	1054	K.K.K.	1082.2	NIL	1082.2	1081	1081
9d	1054	K.K. Bottling	1070.2	NIL	1070.2	1069	1069
9d	1054	Lager Sp Dark	1058.2	NIL	1058.2	1057	1057
Export		Lager Export	1050.3	NIL	1050.3	1050	1050
Export		XLK EX	1049.2	NIL	1049.2	1048	1048
Export		P.A.	1059.2	NIL	1059.2	1058	1058
Export		B.S.c	1066.2	3 qrts @ 1150	1067.9	1065	1066.7
Export		XMAS B.S.c	1076.2	3 qrts @ 1150	1077.5	1075	1976.5
Export		B.B.S. EX	1080.2	NIL	1080.2	1079	1079
Export		I.B.S. EX	1103.2	NIL	1103.2	1102	1102
Source:
Brewing notebook A-H held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/711/1.

In case you're wondering, "minimum Regulation Gravity" refers to the last set if price controls, where beer retailing for a certain price had to fit into a gravity band. For some beers, the primings significantly increased the OG, For example, TT (Porter), which by almost 4º.

The table also told me that Barclay Perkins breed a Christmas version of Best Stout. Never stumbled across that in the brewing records.