Sunday, 31 May 2026

Cost price of Young's beers in 1939/1940

A Youngs Oatmeal Stout label featuring a drawing of a ram.
It seems that Youngs had more than eight beers in their range. In the last page of the brewing record there’s a table of cost prices (at least, that’s what I assume they are) of all their beers. And there are twelve of them.

Where did the other four come from? My guess is that they are the bottled beers. Tweaked versions of the draught beers. And hence not in the brewing books.

OS (Oatmeal Stout) and FS (probably Family Stout) must have been magicked up from the Porter and Stout. Probably by blending the two together in different proportions. That might explain the large quantity of Porter being brewed.

Bot. PA looks like it was just a bottled version of PAB. Though wasn’t that a bottling beer? Maybe there was a draught version of PAB, too. AA? I’ve no idea what that was. Some sort of Pale Ale? Or Brown Ale? Could it be X with 2º added in primings?

The price immediately jumps after September 1939, when war broke out. An emergency budget raised the tax on beer from 80/- per standard barrel (36 Imperial gallons with an OG of 1055º) to 104/-. Prompting quite a large increase in the cost price.

There was a further increase in the tax in April 1940 to 135/- per standard barrel. Resulting in another leap in the cost price in May 1940. One which would have been greater, had Youngs not reduced the gravity of all their beer by 1º that month. 

Cost price of Young's beers in 1939/1940
Beer XXXX XXX X A PA PAB S P Bot. PA AA OS FS
OG 1080 1057 1035 1029 1048 1039 1053 1035 1039 1037 1046 1037
July - 97/1 49/8 35/3 79/2 57/6 94/4 53/- 57/6 51/4 72/5 52/-
August - 97/11 49/11 35/2 79/5 57/3 92/7 55/- 57/3 51/5 74/5 53/-
September 151/3 98/1 52/1 37/7 81/5 59/8 92/9 54/4 59/8 52/7 73/4 53/-
October - 116/4 73/3 59/1 103/- 78/11 119/- 80/1 78/11 73/7 98/11 75/-
November 178/1 119/2 73/7 59/6 103/3 79/4 120/11 74/5 79/4 73/7 94/5 71/6
December 178/4 123/1 75/- 59/4 103/1 79/7 120/9 78/6 79/7 73/9 96/9 74/2
January 181/6 124/- 73/8 60/10 102/- 80/10 121/9 81/3 80/10 72/- 98/8 77/-
February 175/2 121/8 74/- 59/6 104/- 81/7 120/3 80/8 81/7 73/4 97/11 78/-
March 184/4 122/4 76/1 59/8 105/2 80/5 123/6 81/10 83/2 72/11 102/4 79/4
  - - 96/5 78/8 126/5 103/1 158/9 - 103/1 91/9 136/4 105/1
April 174/7 125/1 78/4 62/- 106/- 80/8 128/5 83/2 83/5 74/- 106/4 83/4
May - 146/10 96/- 77/4 125/11 102/11 156/9 104/3 102/11 91/3 130/- 101/6
June - 151/10 93/4 81/- 128/5 102/8 156/- 106/8 102/8 92/3 131/- 105/6
Source:
Young's brewing record held at Battersea Library, document number YO/RE/1/8.

 

 

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