Southwestern Bitter in 1972

Been fumbling about in the manuscript of "Keg!". Not writing long chunks. Just filling in holes. Which is how I work. And I'm sure every other author. Lay out the structure of chapters and subheadings. Then just slowly fill all the empty bits in. When I can be arsed.

I should have started earlier turning my 1970's posts into book blogs, as I like to call them. Paragraphs or even just sentences that end up in my books.  

My fumbling about has got me up to 30,000 words and 105 pages. This is a section I wrote yesterday.

The set from Southwest England is shockingly large. Especially as it includes some tiny breweries in the homebrew houses of the Blue Anchor and Three Tuns.

It has the lowest average price of 13p. And also includes the cheapest beer of all, Devenish Bitter at just 11.5d. Though, having a weedy gravity of just under 1030º, it’s the weakest Bitter of all. In terms of both gravity and ABV.

While we’re talking about Devenish, Saxon looks very much like a keg version of the Bitter. Just costing 1p a pint more. Great that keg surcharge, isn’t it? Both beers look very much like the regional style of Boy’s Bitter. A type of Bitter with a gravity and bitterness level closer to a Light Mild.

Best value are beers from the handful of surviving homebrew pubs, the Blue Anchor and Three Tuns. With the Bitter from the latter being the best value of all the beers analysed. While Blue Anchor Spingo had the highest OG of any of the beers, almost 10º higher than number two.

Quite an odd set, really. As it contains both the strongest and weakest beers. Which, overall, has the second-highest average OG.

These Bitters also include those with the worst degree of attenuation. Both Blue Anchor beers barely creep above 60% attenuation.

Southwestern Bitter in 1972
Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (p)	º gravity per p	% ABV per p	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
Devenish	Saxon	12.5	2.47	0.22	1030.9	1010	2.70	67.64%
Devenish	Bitter	11.5	2.57	0.23	1029.6	1008.8	2.70	70.27%
Hall & Woodhouse	Forum	14	2.92	0.28	1040.9	1010.8	3.90	73.59%
Blue Anchor	Ordinary	12	2.98	0.23	1035.8	1014.1	2.80	60.61%
Hall & Woodhouse	Badger Best	13	3.12	0.31	1040.5	1009.7	4.00	76.05%
Blue Anchor	Spingo	16	3.24	0.26	1051.9	1019.4	4.20	62.62%
Three Tuns	Bitter	12	3.42	0.35	1041	1008.7	4.20	78.78%
Average		13	2.96	0.27	1038.7	1011.6	3.50	69.94%
Source:
Daily Mirror July 10th 1972, page 15.