Midlands Bitter in 1972

I’ve a fairly small set from the Midlands. Just three beers. A bit small to be drawing too many conclusions.

It’s the second most expensive lot, just behind the 13.9p of London. But it’s distorted by Worthington E, an overpriced keg beer. It costs a full 2.5p per pint more than the other two beers, despite not being any stronger. It’s what you’d expect, though. Keg beer sold at an unwarranted premium.

Worthington E isn’t just the worst value in this group. It’s one of the worst of all the beers analysed. The moral? Don’t drink evil keg.

At the other end of the scale, Batham’s Bitter is the second-best value of all the beers analysed, beaten only by the Three Tuns brewpub. It’s also the strongest in terms of ABV. And by quite a way, the next strongest being 0.5% ABV behind at 4.2% ABV. The high level of attenuation helped in that respect.

Though it also distorts the averages in this small set. Which is why this lot have the highest average OG and ABV.

I’m pretty sure that I had both the Banks and Bathams beers. Probably not that often, though, as I usually stuck to Mild, when it was available. Bathams Bitter is a lovely beer. So good, even the bottled version is very drinkable.

Midlands Bitter in 1972
Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (p)	º gravity per p	% ABV per p	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
Bass	Worthington E	15.5	2.44	0.26	1037.8	1007.1	4.00	81.22%
Banks	Bitter	13	2.91	0.29	1037.8	1009.3	3.80	75.40%
Batham	Bitter	13	3.32	0.36	1043.2	1007.1	4.70	83.56%
Average		13.8	2.89	0.30	1039.6	1007.8	4.17	80.06%
Source:
Daily Mirror July 10th 1972, page 15.