Dutch Pils in 1943

By the time 1943 rolled around, the situation was getting pretty dire. Even Pils, which was the strongest beer produced during the war, was well under 2% ABV.

Not sure what was going on with the Leeuw sample. Perhaps it was old stock. What was the point of drinking such watery beer? I’d prefer to get half the volume of beer, but at double the strength. Then you’d at least get a little of the good alcohol effect.

Let’s add a little context by looking at the strength of beer in the UK in 1943. In 1943, average OG hit its wartime nadir. But that was still 1034.34º,  which would have left average strength at around 3.5% ABV. More than double the average for Dutch Pils.

However, there were beers a good bit stronger than that average, as a large percentage of the beer sold in Britain was3% ABV Mild Ale Here’s the set of Ales from a randomly selected UK brewery:

Whitbread Ales in 1943
Date	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
21st Jul	XX	Mild	1028.3	1008.0	2.69	71.73%
22nd Jul	IPA	IPA	1031.4	1005.5	3.43	82.48%
28th Apr	PA	Pale Ale	1039.2	1008.5	4.06	78.32%
22nd Jul	XXXX	Strong Ale	1042.8	1013.0	3.94	69.63%
Source:
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/110.

I imagine Dutch drinkers would have ripped your arm off to get a beer of a heady 4% ABV.  

Dutch Pils in 1943
Date	Brewer	Town	OG Plato	FG Plato	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Colour
18th Dec	Amstel	Amsterdam	3.77	0.96	1.41	74.83%	0.42
25th Jan	Grolsch	Groenlo	4.28	1.12	1.60	74.17%	0.6
25th Jan	Amstel	Amsterdam	3.76	0.87	1.46	77.13%	0.42
25th Jan	Heineken	Rotterdam	4.02	0.66	1.71	83.80%	0.55
25th Jan	Bavaria	Lieshout	4.13	1.14	1.51	72.73%	0.48
25th Jan	Hengelo	Hengelo	3.70	1.21	1.26	67.63%	0.48
16th Feb	De Leeuw	Valkenburg	8.81	2.57	3.26	71.55%	0.4
27th Jul	Heineken	Amsterdam	3.86	1.42	1.23	63.58%	0.58
27th Jul	Heineken	Rotterdam	4.03	1.19	1.44	70.81%	0.58
	Average		4.48	1.24	1.65	72.91%	0.50
Source:
Rapporten van laboratoriumonderzoeken naar producten van Heinekenbrouwerijen in binnen- en buitenland en naar producten van andere brouwerijen held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document number 834 - 1794.