A pint of Best Scotch

There were some odd regional kinks when it came to beer styles. Best Scotch is a good illustration.

Scotch and Best Scotch were used in the Northeast of England to refer to certain classes of Pale Ales. Essentially, draught Bitter. These names weren't used either in Scotland, or in the rest of the UK, for such beers.

They were sometimes brewed in Scotland, but also in the Northeast of England. For example Vaux in Sunderland and Newcastle Breweries in, well, Newcastle.

It seems customers weren't always getting exactly what they expected.

PINT OF BEST (?) SCOTCH
WHEN a customer asks for a pint of Best Scotch at his local does he know what he is getting? 

Analysis a number of brands beer sold in Northumberland has disclosed that although Best Scotch’ marketed by various companies is the same price there is variation in strength. In fact, some firms’ ‘Best Scotch’ is WEAKER than other brewers’ ordinary beer. 

A Northumberland County Council General Purposes Committee REPORT says that a representative of one firm whose Best Scotch was particularly low in original gravity, explained that his company could not produce beer as cheaply as the larger concerns. His firm marketed lower gravity beer at the same price as the higher gravity beer sold by other companies. Money was saved on materials and less duty was payable. 

The report explains that there no legal standard of compositional quality for beer.
Shields Daily News - Saturday 01 November 1952, page 1.

If you look in the table, you'll see that Scotch was around the same strength as draught Mild or Boys Bitter. While Best Scotch, averaging out at about 1037º, looks very much like Ordinary Bitter. In Scottish terms, Scotch was 60/- and Best Scotch 70/-.

I'm guessing that the small brewery was selling something around the strength of Scotch as Best Scotch. Naughty, but, in the days before the stre4ngth of beer was made public, who was to know? There was no legal definition of either term and brewers could sell anything they liked under those names.

Scotch and Best Scotch 1964 - 1967
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1964	Newcastle Breweries	Sotch Ale	15	1032.3	1005.4	3.36	83.28%	30
1967	McEwans	Scotch	19	1031.8	1009.5	2.79	70.13%	35
	Average		17	1032.1	1007.5	3.08	76.70%	32.5
1964	McEwans	Best Scotch	17	1038.1	1007.1	3.87	81.36%	30
1965	McEwans	Best Scotch	18	1037.9	1008.2	3.71	78.36%	25
1967	McEwans	Best Scotch	21	1037.4	1005.9	3.94	84.22%	31
1964	Vaux	Best Scotch	17	1036.3	1006.6	3.71	81.82%	30
1965	Vaux Lorimer	Best Scotch	18	1036.4	1006.3	3.76	82.69%	26
1967	Younger, Wm.	Best Scotch	21	1036.7	1007.6	3.78	79.29%	31
	Average		18.7	1037.1	1007.0	3.80	81.29%	28.8
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.