Friday 8 January 2021

Pre-WW II London Stout

Yet more on Stout in WW II. I'd been dreading writing this section of my new book, "Blitzkrieg!".

Not because I haven't collected enough material. Quite the opposite. I've too much. Pruning it down is taking a lot of work. Plus there are all the nice tables I have to assemble.

Let’s compare the Stouts of four major London brewers. Where we have three 8d per pint beers and two 7d per pint ones.

There’s quite a bit of difference in the hopping rate across the different breweries. Ranging for 6 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt at Courage to 7.5 lbs at Truman. Enough, I’m sure, to have made Truman’s beers noticeably more hoppy.

A relatively poor rate of attenuation is a feature of all the Stouts for which I have the FG. Though, as these beers were cask-conditioned, the FG when served would have been a little lower.

If you're wondering why there's no Fuller's Stout, it's because they discontinued it in 1931.

Pre-WW II London Stout
Year Brewer Beer OG OG after primings FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl
1937 Courage Stout 1047.6 1052 1015.8 4.21 66.86% 5.92 1.15
1936 Barclay Perkins BS 1051.1   1017.0 4.51 66.72% 6.37 1.48
1937 Whitbread LS 1044.6   1013.0 4.18 70.85% 6.94 1.26
1931 Truman BS 1055.7 1060.5       7.5 1.53
1931 Truman St 1046.8 1050.4       7.5 1.29
Sources:
Courage brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/08/263.
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/621.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/125.
Truman gyle book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/114.

 

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