Let's Brew Wednesday - 1941 Barclay Perkins Export

What’s changed since last year? Just about nothing, if I’m honest. Even the gravity has remained the same.

The grist is still 28 quarters of lager malt and 9 quarters of grits. I’m pretty sure that it’s lager malt and not pale malt purely based on the name of the maltster: Gilstrap (coincidentally, from my home town of Newark). Barclay Perkins usually got their lager malt from either Taylor or Gilstrap.

One area where there have been modifications is the hopping. The rate has been reduced from 6 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt to a bit over 4.5 lbs. Brewers were instructed by the government to reduce hop usage in the summer of 1941.

Two types of Bohemian Saaz were both from the 1938 harvest. In addition, there were Belgian Saaz and English hops, both from 1939. All the hops had been cold stored.

This was the mashing scheme:

mash in	110º F	86 minutes
raise to	154º F	20 minutes
raise to	168º F
hold at	168º F	29 minutes
Sparge at	175º F

The cereal mash was used like a decoction. 

1941 Barclay Perkins Export
lager malt	7.75 lb	73.81%
grits	2.75 lb	26.19%
Saaz 120 mins	0.50 oz
Saaz 60 mins	0.50 oz
Saaz 30 mins	0.25 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.25 oz
OG	1047.5
FG	1015
ABV	4.30
Apparent attenuation	68.42%
IBU	14
SRM	3
Mash at	154º F
Sparge at	175º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	47.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 2042 Danish lager

This recipe is from my recently-released Blitzkrieg!, the definitive book on brewing during WW II.

Get your copy now!

The second volume contains the recipes. But not just that. There are also overviews of some of the breweries covered, showing their beers at the start and the end of the conflict.

Buy one now and be the envy of your friends!

Barclay Perkins Lagers before WW II

Details of one brewery’s pre-WW II Lagers, my favourite Barclay Perkins.

Barclay Perkins Lagers in 1938
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	Pitch temp	colour
Dark	Dunkles	1057.5	1017.1	5.34	70.26%	4.68	1.09	48.5º	80
Export	Export	1049.5	1008.5	5.42	82.83%	6.00	1.13	46º	13.5
Draught	Lager	1043.5	1008.9	4.58	79.54%	5.47	0.93	48º	13.5
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/642.

Nice that they brewed more than one type of Lager. Especially that one was dark.

Even the weakest, Draught, is slightly above average OG. Export looks like has a continental-like strength. While Dark has a very reasonable gravity in the high 1050ºs.

Hopping, as you might expect, was on the low side compared to Barclay Perkins Ales. Still heavier than most Scottish Pale Ales.

Pretty simple recipes for all three.

Barclay Perkins Lager malts in 1938
Beer	Style	lager malt	crystal malt	grits	roast barley
Dark	Dunkles	61.76%	14.71%		1.47%
Export	Export	85.29%		26.47%
Draught	Lager	100.00%
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/642.

Hops now. Which are even less interesting.

Barclay Perkins Lager hops in 1938
Beer	Style	hop 1	hop 2
Dark	Dunkles	Saaz 1937	Saaz 1937
Export	Export	Saaz 1937	Saaz 1937
Draught	Lager	Saaz 1937	Saaz 1937
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/642.

All Saaz, all from the most recent season. Can’t get simpler than that. Except that there were two types of them. One costing 237/- per hundredweight, the other 315/-.

Excise duty

After 1880, the way of calculating exvise duty on beer wad an odd one. It was charged per "standard barrel" rather than by the actual volume of liquid.

This text explains it:

"From 1880 to 1933 the unit of charge was the "standard barrel," viz., 36 gallons at the standard specific gravity, which was 1057 deg. until 1889 and 1055 deg. thereafter. In 1923 the duty was reduced by a rebate of 20s. (or less on beer of very low gravity) per "bulk barrel," viz., 36 gallons whatever the gravity. This method was adopted in order to facilitate a uniform reduction in the retail prices of practically all beer, and the rebate was continued concurrently with subsequent increases in the charge."
Brewers' Journal 1940, page 49 (published January 17th, 1940).

But in the early 1930s, there was a subtle change to the system.

"In 1933 the duty was reduced and remodelled. Before the Budget of that year the Excise duty was £6 14s. per standard barrel minus the rebate referred to. This was altered to £1 4s. per barrel of a specific gravity up to and including 1027 deg., plus a further 2s. for every degree of gravity over 1027 deg. Thus the unit of charge was shifted from the standard barrel to the bulk barrel, and the charge was made to vary with the gravity of the latter. The reduction was calculated to be sufficient, in most cases, to permit of a fall in retail prices of 1d. per pint and to leave a margin to cover a rise in gravity."
Brewers' Journal 1940, page 49 (published January 17th, 1940).

This new system was a huge disincentive to brewing anything under 1027º. Because whether your beer had an OG of 1010º or 1027º, you still paid £1 4s. per barrel. Sure enough, I don't think I've come across a single beer with an OG below 1027º after 1933. While in WW I, there were beers as weak as 1010º.

"The Customs duty on imported beer exceeds the Excise duty by 1s. 3d. per bulk barrel, of which 5d. is to countervail the cost, to the home brewer of the licence duty and the Excise restrictions to which he is subject, and l0d. to countervail the Customs duty on imported hops. On imports of non-Empire beer, which consists largely of lager beer, there is also a surtax of £1 per bulk barrel imposed in 1936 as a measure of protection to the British lager beer industry."
Brewers' Journal 1940, page 49 (published January 17th, 1940).

I'd seen an extra tax on imported beer suggested for the purpose of helping Lager brewing in the UK. But I hadn't realised that it had been implemented. As mentioned in the article, UK beer imports, other than those from Ireland, were almost exclusively in the form of Lager.

And finally, a little mention for Black Beer, that weird and obscure stuff:

"On black beer, which is a special high gravity product, exceeding 1200 deg., in the nature of a syrup, the duties and rebates have remained unaltered since 1923. There have been no imports for many years, and the home production is small, having been 378 bulk barrels in 1938-39, equivalent to 1,668 standard barrels."
Brewers' Journal 1940, page 49 (published January 17th, 1940).

With only 378 bulk barrels produced, it was just about extinct.

Output Restricted

Lots to snack on in this little article. Read attentively because there will be a test later.

"RED TOWER LAGER BREWERY
Output Restricted
The fourteenth annual ordinary general meeting of Red Tower Lager Brewery Ltd was held yesterday at the Grand Hotel. Manchester. Mr. H. P. Gillow, J. P. (chairman of the company) presiding, said:
The result of the year's working must be considered satisfactory in view of the difficulties we have had to face. I deplore the fact that a further reduction in quality has been forced upon us, and that our permitted output has been restricted, and look forward to the time. which I trust will not long be delayed, when we return to freedom as to quality and quantity.

The restriction on export is particularly unfortunate at a time when we had expended large sums of money on plant to cope with this trade, and we hope for its speedy removal.

Good progress has been made in installing plant to allow for greater production as is evident from the increase of £30,000 under this heading. The post-war refund of Excess Profits has assisted to keep the reduction in the margin by which current cash assets exceed current cash liabilities, due to the above expenditure, to a reasonable figure, and the completion of this programme should cause no embarrassment."
Birmingham Daily Gazette - Saturday 28 September 1946, page 4.

Red Tower was one of just six breweries regularly producing Lager at the time.


Restricted output, limits on export, Excess Profits Tax. How much fun it was to be a brewer in the 1940s.


There was an Excess Profits Tax in both world wars.If a company made too much money, the government simply took it off them. The commie bastards.

Red Tower is still operating, usually called the Royal Brewery nowadays. I think they're still brewing that horrible lagery stuff.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1939 Barclay Perkins Sparkling Beer

Here's a treat for you - another wartime British Lager.

Though you may already have drunk this beer. If you attended the historic Lager festival at Urban Chestnut in St. Louis a couple of years ago. It was one of the recipes I provided. The beer went down surprisingly well.

First appearing just before WW II, Sparkling Beer was a strange beast. Brewed as a Lager, but nothing about its branding revealed that fact. Which is a bit strange.

As it doesn’t appear on any UK Barclay Perkins price lists, I’m pretty sure it was never sold domestically. Rather, it seems to have been designed as a long-life beer for ships’ stores, export and the military. Which is probably why it was often in canned form.

Amber in colour, a style Nazi would probably pin it down as a Vienna Lager. But I don’t think that was the brewery’s aim. Guessing what their aim might have been is another matter.

The grist is an odd mix of lager and crystal malt. With quite a lot of Saaz hops. It’s not very complicated, but doesn’t look much like either a UK of a continental beer. The Saaz were from the 1937 and 1938 harvests, both kept in a cold store.

A strange beer, which one that lived on quite a while after Barclay’s original London Lager brands disappeared.

1939 Barclay Perkins Sparkling Beer
lager malt	9.50 lb	88.37%
crystal malt 80 L	1.25 lb	11.63%
Saaz 90 min	1.25 oz
Saaz 60 min	1.25 oz
Saaz 30 min	1.25 oz
OG	1048
FG	1014
ABV	4.50
Apparent attenuation	70.83%
IBU	39
SRM	10
Mash at	158º F
Sparge at	175º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	45º F
Yeast	Wyeast 2042 Danish lager

Let's Brew - 1939 Barclay Perkins Dark Lager

As promised, a lovely looking Barclay Perkins Dark Lager from just before the outbreak of WW II.

I like the way that, right from the outset, Barclay Perkins produced a Dark Lager. And not only that, they also brewed it at a decent strength. Dunkles Export you would probably have called it in Germany at the time.

Compared to their other beers, the ingredients and brewing methods were quite varied across Barclay Perkins Lagers. The mashing schemes are all different, for example. Dark’s was rather shorter, as this shows:

mash in	125º F	30 minutes
raise to	158º F	20 minutes
raise to	170º F
hold at	170º F	35 minutes
Sparge at	175º F

Almost, but not quite all malt. Most of the colouring being provided by roast barley. Why use that and not black malt? Because roast barley was in all of their Stouts. Had they been using black malt there, I’m sure they would have in Dark, too.

All Saaz hops again. A third from the 1937 crop, the rest from 1938, both cold stored.

1939 Barclay Perkins Dark Lager
lager malt	10.50 lb	79.25%
crystal malt 80 L	2.50 lb	18.87%
roast barley	0.25 lb	1.89%
Saaz 90 mins	0.75 oz
Saaz 60 mins	0.75 oz
Saaz 30 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1057.5
FG	1018.5
ABV	5.16
Apparent attenuation	67.83%
IBU	22
SRM	20
Mash at	158º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	46º F
Yeast	Wyeast 2042 Danish lager

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1940 Whitbread Export Lager

Wartime can make brewers do odd things. Like brewing styles they never had before. Such as this totally unexpected brew of Lager from Whitbread.

It’s important to understand the context of this apparently random batch of Lager. This beer was brewed at the end of July, after the fall of France. Whitbread sold four types of bottled Lager before WW II: Grahams, Carlsberg, Tuborg and Artois.  Sourced from, respectively, Scotland, Denmark, Denmark and Belgium. The last three of those sources were now under German control.

Not having a fancy Lager brewery like Barclay Perkins, Whitbread didn’t go in for any of that decoction rubbish, using an infusion mash as for all their other beers. It wasn’t fermented cold, which probably made sense as they used their standard yeast. In this case harvested from an earlier batch of IPA.

There’s not much to the recipe: two types of pale malt and sugar. The latter being described as “PS”. Which could possibly stand for “Pale Syrup”. I’ve opted for No. 1 invert. This being a Lager, I can’t imagine it being any darker than that.

About the only really Lager-like feature is the use of Saaz hops. Obviously from before the war. The 1938 harvest, to be precise, kept in a cold store. As were the remainder of the hops, which were East Kent. Also from the 1938 crop.

As far as I can tell, Whitbread only brewed this beer once. Perhaps they found a replacement source of Lager.

1940 Whitbread Export Lager
pale malt	7.00 lb	80.00%
No. invert 1 sugar	1.75 lb	20.00%
Goldings 90 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings 60 mins	0.50 oz
Saaz 30 mins	0.25 oz
OG	1043
FG	1008
ABV	4.63
Apparent attenuation	81.40%
IBU	17
SRM	6
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	63º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

1880s Lager again

As you may well have noticed, I'm a bit obsessed with Lager in the UK. Especially in the late 19th century, when it was just becoming a thing.

There was a lot of discussion about the particular flavour of Lager and where it came from.

"The Flavour of Continental Beers.
AS is well-known, English consumers of the so-called "lager beers" are first struck by their essentially different flavour, as compared with beers of continental production, that they possess ; and various theories have been broached to explain the reason of this difference, some ascribing it to the foreign system of boiled mashes, others to the custom of coating trade casks with a vitreous enamel, while the true cause most likely is a combination of several influences, of which the most important is undoubtedly the use cf a special type of yeast, which possesses the capacity of determining the flavour peculiar to itself this flavour resembling in a great measure the well-known taste of garlic. There is nothing fresh, of course, in the fact that yeast possesses power of this kind, since M. Pasteur described how the peculiar flavour of Burton beer depended almost entirely upon a special ferment that existed in the yeast peculiar to that centre of brewing. More than one English firm has attempted to produce lager beer, but we are confident they will never succeed in imitating the exact flavour peculiar to the Continental beers of that name until they cultivate, under normal conditions, the special yeast that is used in all bottom fermentation breweries."
Holmes' Brewing Trade Gazette - Thursday 01 March 1883, page 13.

In this case, the author seems to have decide that it came mostly from the yeast. Not sure how correct that is.

The oblique reference to Burton beers and Pasteur is fascinating. Could it be Brettanomyces, or a specific type of Brettanomyces, which Pasteur alluded to? It's definitely a possibility, as Stock Pale Ales like Bass definitely contained it.

Another recurring theme whenever Lager was mentioned is it non-intoxicating nature. Having seen hundreds of analyses of 19th-century Lagers, I can attest that they were mostly less alcoholic that British beers. Partly because they had lower gravities, but also because the rate of attenuation was poor: rarely higher than 65%.

"The Necessity for Non-intoxicating Beer.
THERE are certain signs that a portion of middle class society is exhibiting a tendency to prefer beer of low gravity, or brewed on bottom fermentation lines, to those more saccharine and alcoholic fluids that are chieflly produced by English brewers; and, although the experiment of producing Lager beer in England may not be at all times commercially successful, there is no doubt that a great demand would spring up for a beer of low gravity, that combined in itself qualities of brightness, soundness, constant condition, and an easy digestiblity of solid extract. The question arises whether it would be possible to produce such beer on a system somewhat akin to the German method, without the necessity for bottom fermentation, and without possessing the somewhat distinct and, to an English drinker, unpleasant palate flavour of true Lager Beer. It is perfectly evident that for a weak beer to combine the main qualities specified above, it would have to be produced from very superior material to give high dextrine percentage, and that first extract must only be diluted with liquor in place of inferior weak runnings. The necessary high percentage of dextrine might be easily attained by a modified boiled mash, and we are quite sure that with good water of moderate hardness, malt of kinds specified, and careful collection and fermentation of wort, there would be no difficulty in producing a 15 lb. beer of very commendable quality. Brewers' Journal."
Holmes' Brewing Trade Gazette - Tuesday 01 April 1884, page 14.

Of course, it would be many decades before drinkers really adopted Lager in any numbers. Note again the mention of Lager's peculiar flavour.

Drinkers did eventually move over to weaker beers, but not really voluntarily. Mostly as a result of WW I. The 15 lbs gravity mentioned is 1042º - just about exactly what average strength was between the wars.

English Lager Beer

There was considerable interest in British brewing circles in Lager towards the end of the 19th century. Though few were willing to commit to the expense of building a Lager plant.

Doubtless many were put off by the fate of several company's which did. There were some spectacular bankruptcies and large amounts of capital were lost. Which goes some way to explaining this curious advertisement:

""ENGLISH LAGER BEER."
FRANK J. Roper-Nunn, Practical and Scientitic Maltster, Brewer, and Analyst; with nearly twenty vears experience at the Mash Tun, North, South, East and West of England; Brewer for Torquay Brewing Co., February to November, 1882; who discovered the processes for Brewing a "Lager Beer", and has successfully produced "Lager Beer" upon the top fermentation system without ice in different parts of England (reference can be given). He offers written instructions and copy of Brewing, for £5 5s. The true secrets of obtaining a "Lager Flavour" are well known to F. J. R. N. who personally conducted all the "Lager Beer" Brewings for The Torquay Co. from February to November 1882. He questions if they be known to any one else excepting those who purchased his instructions. Address Frank J. Roper-Nunn, care of Editor of The Brewing Trade Gazette."
Holmes' Brewing Trade Gazette - Tuesday 01 May 1883, page 17.

I can understand why it might have been tempting for a brewer to be able  to brew "Lager" without any of the expensive equipment. But I somehow doubt whether there really was some magical secret to brewing Lager in a top-fermenting brewery.

Mr. Roper-Nunn clearly believed that his "secret" was valuable. £5 5s would have bought you 630 pints of Mild down the pub. I wonder if anyone ever asked for their money back?

Dextrinous Beer.

Towards the end of the 19th century, UK brewers became a little obsessed with Lager. And the ways in which it differed from UK-brewed beer.

Some could see the advantages of a Lager-like beverage, but few were keen to put their money where their mouth was and build a proper bottom-fermenting brewery. Though, having seen what happened to most of those earlier pioneers who did invest in a Lager brewery, I can understand their reluctance. Ther ewere some spectacular bankruptcies.

"Dextrinous Beer.
ONE of the principal differences between English and Continental or lager beers, is the much smaller percentage of dextrine in the former. Independently of the system of rapid fermentation at comparatively high temperatures which is adopted in this country, and which produces a highly-attenuated and therefore strongly alcoholic beer, our systems of malting and mashing tend towards the production of highly saccharine and therefore readily fermentable worts, and the resulting beers possess a comparative thinness of flavour when the amount of malt that has been used in their production is taken into consideration. Lager beer brewers use malt which has been germinated to only a moderate extent, and by their methods of mashing they check and partially destroy the action of the diastase, so that the percentage of dextrine to maltose in their completed beers is, on the average, as three to one, whilst in English-brewed beers this ratio is, on the average, only from 1 to 1.5 to 1. As dextrine undoubtedly gives fullness of flavour to beer, lager beer is very much "fuller" and "rounder" to the palate than our English-brewed beer of the same original gravity. The "high" and "low" systems of fermentation have something to do with this, but in the main it is due to the lager beer brewer producing a very dextrinous wort. Our English system of mashing tends to convert much of the dextrine into maltose, and thus an easily attenuated wort is produced."
Holmes' Brewing Trade Gazette - Sunday 01 July 1883, page 12.

I doubt anyone today would call late 19th-century English beer thin. One of the reasons Lagers tasted fuller is that the rate of attenuation back then was shit. Few Lager managed better than 65% apparent attenuation.  Considerably worse than most English beers.

Weird that they should be worried by the fact that UK malt and UK mashing techniques were in reality so much better than on the Continent.

It seems that the Free Mash Tun Act gave brewers a chance to recreate something Lager-like, without the need for all that fiddly decoction mashing.

"When malt was the only material allowed to be used in the mash-tun, it was very difficult for the English brewer to produce a highly dextrinous wort:- Malt in itself is so rich in diastase, that nearly all its starch is rapidly converted into maltose when it is mashed with water, under the conditions which usually obtain in an English brewery; but now that the use of raw grain is permitted, there is no reason why brewers should not increase tha dextrine ratio. By using mixed grists, carefully compounded, so as to contain only sufficient diastase to convert a portion of the starch into maltose, and using some unmalted grain which has been submitted to a process by which its starch is largely converted into dextrine, it seems possible and not very difficult for English brewers, even when still following their well-established system of brewing, to produce a highly dextrinous beer. Such a beer would commend itself to the palate of many beer drinkers en account of its excessive "fulness," and besides would possess the advantage of retaining a frothy head when poured out, no slight recommendation, for a beer drinker's eye has to be pleased as his palate. A moderately alcoholic beer, prepared and fermented according to the systems usually adopted in this country, but containing about equal proportions of maltose and dextrine, and of low original gravity, would probably meet the requirements of the modified taste of English beer drinkers, and would check the rapidly increasing demand for foreign-brewed lager beer."
Holmes' Brewing Trade Gazette - Sunday 01 July 1883, page 12.

Leaving just enough enzymes to partially convert the starch in the mash seems dead risky to me. You'd need to be very cofident of knowing the precise diastatic power of your malt. If you overestimated it, the result would be a shit wort. Underestimate it, and you'd just get a standard English wort.

It's worth pointing out that beer imports were minimal at the time.

17,850 barrels of beer were imported into the UK. Out of a total consumption of 30,341,199 barrels.* That's just 0.06%. So imports were scarcely on the point of driving UK brewers out of business. Though we can be pretty certain that almost all of those imports were Lager of some description. There was no point in importing top-fermenting beer.



* Brewers' Almanack 1928, pages 109 and 115.

Carling Black Label arrives in the UK

My concession to summer - a post about Lager. Not done one for ages.

Canadian Eddie Taylor’s acquisition of a British brewing empire began with he let the Hope & Anchor Brewery in Sheffield brew Carling Black Label under licence in 1952 . Initially, it had a very reasonable gravity of 1042º.

When sales were disappointing, mostly due to the small tied estate of Hope & Anchor, Taylor began buying breweries and their pubs. The United Breweries group he put together eventually merged with Charrington and later Bass to become Bass Charrington, the largest brewing enterprise in Britain. Carling was chosen as the group’s main Lager, a decision that catapulted it to become the leading Lager brand. A position it still holds today.

It wasn’t good news for Tennent’s, whom Taylor bought in 1963. Tennent’s had been a national Lager brand before the war, but it was pushed into the background by the selection of Carling Black Label as Bass Charrington’s flagship Lager.

Another victim of the merger was Charrington’s Pilsner Lager, which was first brewed in the 1950’s. That disappeared completely.

British Lagers in the 1950's
Year	Brewer	Beer	package	FG	OG	colour	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1950	Barclay Perkins	Lager	bottled	1008	1036.1	11 B	3.65	77.84%
1950	Barclay Perkins	Lager	bottled	1008	1036.1	11 B	3.65	77.84%
1950	Red Tower	Lager	bottled	1008.2	1035.8	13 B	3.58	77.09%
1950	Alloa Brewery	Light Lager	bottled	1009.1	1043.4	7 B	4.46	79.03%
1950	Alloa Brewery	Graham's Golden Lager	bottled	1010.6	1040.6	9 B	3.89	73.89%
1952	Carlings (Brewed in Sheffield)	Black Label Lager Beer	bottled	1009.9	1042.3	10 B	4.21	76.60%
1952	Alloa Brewery	Graham's Golden Lager	bottled	1014.3	1039.2	15 B	3.22	63.52%
1954	Steel Coulson	Lager Beer	bottled	1004.3	1032	11	3.6	86.56%
1955	Tennent	Lager	bottled	1007.7	1036.1	9	3.69	78.67%
1956	Flowers	Lager	bottled	1014	1040.4	9	3.41	65.35%
1956	Flowers	Lager	bottled	1014	1045.3	9	4.05	69.09%
1956	Red Tower	Red Tower Pilsner Lager	bottled	1005.9	1031.2	10	3.29	81.09%
1957	Barclay Perkins	Pilsner Lager	bottled	1006.3	1035	9	3.73	82.00%
1957	Flowers	Lager	bottled	1017.9	1045	9	3.5	60.22%
1957	Flowers	Flowers Lager	bottled	1017.5	1050	14	4.2	65.00%
1957	Graham's	Pilsener Lager	bottled	1007.2	1035.6	9	3.69	79.78%
1957	Graham's Golden Lager	Pilsner Lager	bottled	1007.3	1030.4	11	3	75.99%
1957	Charrington	Pilsner Lager	can	1006.2	1035.5	4.5	3.81	82.54%
1957	Charrington	Pilsner Lager	can	1005.8	1036	5	3.93	83.89%
1957	Barclay Perkins	Pilsner Lager	bottled	1006.1	1034.3	6.5	3.67	82.22%
1957	McEwan & Younger	"MY" Export Lager	bottled	1006.3	1033.6	13	3.55	81.25%
1957	McEwan & Younger	"MY" Export Lager	bottled	1007.3	1035.2	13	3.62	79.26%
1957	McEwan & Younger	"MY" Export Lager	bottled	1010.9	1033.8	13	2.96	67.75%
1957	Tennent	Lager Beer	bottled	1008.6	1040.6	11	4.16	78.82%
1958	McEwan & Younger	MY Export Lager	can	1010.5	1034.3	9	2.97	69.39%
1959	Carling (brewed in Sheffield)	Black Label Lager	bottled	1004.4	1036.5	80	4.18	87.95%
1959	Lees	Lager			1037
1959	Lees	Lager			1037
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002
Lees brewing records

Like this? Then you'll love the book it comes from, Lager! (UK):

WW II - Lager imports dry up again

World War II, just like WW I, caused huge difficulties for the British brewing industry. There were shortages of raw materials and limits placed on output and on the strength of beer. One of the results was that most breweries trimmed down their ranges. A policy that led to Porter’s extinction in London, with Whitbread brewing their last Porter in September 1940.

So it’s interesting to see what happened to Barclay Perkins beers. Them being one of the big players in the Lager trade. They started the war with an enormous range of draught beers: Porter, Stout, five Mild Ales, two Bitters and two Burtons. In November 1940 two Milds and Best Bitter were discontinued. Porter didn’t last much longer.

A price list from 1943 shows that they were still brewing their full pre-war set of five Lagers: bottled Light and Dark Lager; draught Export, Light and Dark Lager. The draught Lager came in metric-sized barrels of 5.5 and 11 gallons. The brewery also supplied CO2 cylinders to serve the beer.

The fact that they retained all their Lagers while paring down the varieties of other styles demonstrates how important Lager was. You could say, oh well they brewed it in such small quantities discontinuing would have had little impact. Yet the beers that disappeared, such as Porter, were mostly ones that didn’t sell much.

Whitbread had bigger problems. Before the outbreak of war, they sold four types of Lager: Graham’s, Carlsberg, Tuborg and Artois, all bottled. In 1940, supplies of three of those were cut off by the German army. It caused their sales of Lager to drop more than 50% compared with 1939.

But we shouldn’t get too carried away about that drop. It looks enormous in percentage terms, however in absolute terms, it’s bugger all. Total Lager sales for 1940 were 115 barrels, down from 254 barrels in 1939. Especially when you compare it with bottled Ale sales: they were 204,098 in 1940.

I assume that it was difficulties in obtaining supplies of continental Lager that prompted Whitbread to do something very unusual in July 1940. They brewed a Lager in their Chiswell Street brewery in London. Though it wasn’t fermented with Lager yeast and it was brewed from pale rather than lager malt. It did use Saaz hops, at least. And the colour was nice and pale at just 7.5º Lovibond, compared to around 27º for their Pale Ales.

Whatever their reasons for brewing it, they didn’t make a regular habit of it. There was just a single batch.




Like this? Then you'll love the book it comes from, Lager! (UK):