Let's kick off with Scotland. From which we have two beers, both brewed by Scottish & Newcastle. They're incredibly different value. With Tartan being incredibly poor value and Scotch pretty good. Tartan is a bit lower in gravity but cost 4p per pint more. I suppose they had to recoup all the money put into advertising Tartan somehow. Not really much more I can say about these beers.
And, finally, the last set from the Southwest. Again, just two examples. And from the opposite ends of the brewing industry. The one being from one of the handful of surviving home brew pubs and the other from one of the Big Six.
Both beers are pretty weak and look to me very much like examples of Boy's Bitter. They come out to around 5º weaker than the national average.
What really surprised me were the prices. I'd have expected them to be the other way around, with the home brew beer cheap and the Big Six beer expensive. At just 12p, Starbright is one of the cheapest Bitters analysed. Though this type of beer was often substituting for Mild Ale, so the pricing should be seen in that context.
Just the overview to go now.
| Scottish Bitter in 1971 | ||||||||
| Brewer | Beer | Price per pint (p) | º gravity per p | % ABV per p | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation |
| Younger | Tartan Keg | 16 | 2.21 | 0.22 | 1035.3 | 1008.6 | 3.46 | 75.64% |
| Scottish & Newcastle | Scotch | 12 | 3.02 | 0.31 | 1036.2 | 1007.6 | 3.72 | 79.14% |
| Average | 14 | 2.61 | 0.26 | 1035.8 | 1008.1 | 3.59 | 77.39% | |
| Source: | ||||||||
| Sunday Mirror - Sunday 21 March 1971, page 25. | ||||||||
| Southwestern Bitter in 1971 | ||||||||
| Brewer | Beer | Price per pint (p) | º gravity per p | % ABV per p | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation |
| All Nations | Home Brew | 14 | 2.31 | 0.22 | 1032.3 | 1008.8 | 3.04 | 72.76% |
| Whitbread | Starbright | 12 | 2.67 | 0.27 | 1032.1 | 1007.5 | 3.19 | 76.64% |
| Average | 13 | 2.49 | 0.24 | 1032.2 | 1008.2 | 3.12 | 74.70% | |
| Source: | ||||||||
| Sunday Mirror - Sunday 21 March 1971, page 25. | ||||||||
Tartan was always a keg beer and attracted the same inflated price as other kegged beer.
ReplyDeleteOn that Point, most Scotch, which would have been McEwans Best Scotch, was unpasteurised tanker beer delivered to cellar tanks and would have been far cheaper to package and deliver.
I wonder why it was described as a bitter, it was dark and as with its competitor Lorimers Scotch was really analogous to a traditional dark mild.
Tank beer as in what you get in the Czech Republic.
DeleteOscar
Did I miss Wales?
ReplyDelete1971-74 I was a student at Durham. On arrival we were given a 'Freshers Guide' which included a very useful listing of the various Durham pubs, and what beers that sold. Tartan was the big ticket item, 'best Tartan, very good Tartan etc etc'.... and 'best value Tartan' or words to that effect at the students union bar. Damn Tartan was everywhere. I can still remember the taste - it was bloody awful. And I was no beer connoisseur, real or imagined, in those days. The only good thing about it was that it was dished up so cold that you could hardly taste it.
ReplyDeleteS&N pubs that catered to the townies sold Newcastle Exhibition, and some bold souls would brave the spit and sawdust and venture there, but student pubs got Tartan.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteno, you didn't. Because there were no analyses from Wales.
Anon: UK tanks were fairly similar to the Czech model. They would be filled from tankers coming out from the local brewery and filled via hoses into the cellar. Not unlike petrol stations.
ReplyDeleteThe usual tanks which Ron has written about if I recall were mostly made by the Grundy and Sankey companies and went out of favour due to corrosion problems and difficulties in cleaning. However both companies still exist and still provide brewing vessels.
The beer was far fresher and less gassy than their keg equivalents. Old Grundy tanks were often repurposed for the early small craft breweries before the modern stainless steel brewing suppliers got going, a lot of them ended up in the USA where they often formed the heart of the new smaller craft and brewpub breweries!