Final results by brewery (part two)

I know. I'm still dragging you along. But I'm determined we'll all make the finishing line, even if I do scrape all the skin off your back.

Five more breweries today, hopefully not quite as dodgy as the last set.

First is Hoare, another of the Porter breweries that popped to prominence in the 18th century.

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Hoare	Burton	1017.2	1054.94	4.89	68.70%	0.67	10	22.22%
Hoare	Pale Ale	1012.1	1046.3	4.44	73.83%	0.00	11	50.00%
Hoare	Porter	1010.4	1034.0	3.06	69.38%	-1.56	9
Hoare	Stout	1017.9	1054.2	4.70	67.06%	0.10	8
Hoare	X	1033.8	1009.8	3.11	71.16%	0.30	8	70.00%
average						-0.10	9.2	47.41%

That's not too bad. Only one negative score, but a pretty dreadful one: -1.56 for their Porter. But, if you remember, lots of the Porters were rubbish, even from breweries whose other beers were good. There are a couple of OK-ish scores for Stout and Mild Ale. Only Burton, with 0.67, gets much of a positive score. Not how that's the style with the worst clarity. One of the big lessons from these analyses is that clarity and quality don't necessarily always walk hand in hand.

Whitbread's choice of breweries seems quite random in some respects. Sure, the big London brewers are there: Courage, Whitbread, Truman, Charrington and Mann. But ones like Huggins and Lion - why pick them? They were neither particularly large nor famous. Especially when larger breweries, like Taylor Walker, were ignored.

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Huggins	Burton	1012.5	1054.2	5.42	76.88%	0.67	11	44.44%
Huggins	Pale Ale	1008.7	1046.0	4.86	81.10%	0.36	6	54.55%
Huggins	Stout	1018.5	1062.1	5.67	70.27%	1.09	4
Huggins	X	1036.0	1008.1	3.63	77.57%	0.20	9	60.00%
average						0.58	7.5	53.00%

I'll be honest. I'd hadn't heard of Huggins before seeing the Whitbread Gravity Book. Having disappeared in the 1920's didn't help. They're the first brewery with all positive scores. However, there's no Porter, a style which let down many of the other breweries. Best scorer is Stout with 1.09, followed by Burton with 0.67. You can see that the beer that was most often clear, X Ale, got the worst average score. While second-best Burton had the worst score for clarity. With an overall average of 0.58 and no negative averages, Huggins seems a fairly safe bet.

Now owners of that spectacular riverside brewery, Lion.

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Lion	Burton	1012.6	1053.73	5.35	76.47%	0.78	8	22.22%
Lion	Porter	1009.6	1037.7	3.64	74.35%	0.63	4
Lion	Pale Ale	1010.7	1046.5	4.65	77.05%	0.00	12	50.00%
Lion	X	1040.9	1007.6	4.33	81.37%	0.40	6	50.00%
average						0.45	7.5	40.74%

The lion which used to stand on top of the brewery is all that remains of the structure, sadly. We've another overall positive average, this time of 0.45. Not quite all positive scores as one is zero, but not too bad. Though once again the top-scorer, Burton, is the worst for clarity, with fewer than a quarter of the samples bright.

Mann was one of the rising stars of London brewing at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Was their popularity merited by the quality of their beer?

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Mann	Burton	1011.7	1053.86	5.49	78.31%	1.25	3	50.00%
Mann	Pale Ale	1008.3	1053.4	5.88	84.44%	0.07	10	35.71%
Mann	Porter	1009.2	1038.8	3.83	76.23%	-0.25	6
Mann	Stout	1012.0	1054.5	5.54	78.05%	0.43	6
Mann	X	1041.3	1008.2	4.26	79.96%	1.33	1	66.67%
average						0.57	5.2	50.79%

Partly. They were famous for their Ales amd, sure enough, both their Burton Ale and Mild Ale score well, averaging over 1. Their Pale Ale and Porter let them down which is why the overall average is only 0.57. For once it was the lowest scorer that was the least bright. I'd  be well served by a Manns pub as Burton and Mild would be my drinks of choice.

Finally this time it's Meux, who had only just vacated their horseshoe brewery at the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street.

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Meux	Burton	1009.7	1053.31	5.69	81.69%	1.11	4	44.44%
Meux	MA	1028.1	1005.9	2.88	78.93%	-0.57	1	57.14%
Meux	Pale Ale	1007.4	1044.8	4.87	83.36%	0.33	7	41.67%
Meux	Stout	1014.7	1054.9	5.23	73.29%	0.18	7
Meux	X	1041.2	1008.2	4.28	80.02%	0	10	54.55%
average						0.21	5.8	49.45%

That's not too bad. only one negative score and that was for watery MA, the low-gravity Mild. Kiddies Mild I think of it as. At under 3% ABV, it was about as alcoholic as Radler. Their Burton came out on top, with an average of 1.11. However this wasn't reflected in its clarity score, which was a poor 44%.

Right. Just one more last push and the slog is over. Let's hope I can find enough about Lager to keep us entertained.

Lion Porter quality 1922 - 1923

I'm still rolling around in the smelly slops of Porter that's gone off. Pity me.

I'll remind you that the Lion Brewery was an impressive neo-classical structure on the banks of the Thames in Lambeth. It really was an impressive building, looking more like a country house than industrial premises. The giant lion that stood atop it only added to the effect. Sadly, the lion is all that remains, the site now being home to part of the dismal South Bank complex.

Lion Brewery in 1921
http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/download/EPW006152

I've just had another thought about why the Porter might be so crap. My guess is that Porter was the traditional destination of all recovered slops. For a couple of reasons: it was dark, it was cheap and poor people drank it. Having all sorts of dubious crap added to it couldn't have helped its quality. Especially when it was sitting around in the cellar too long anyway.

While we're on this topic, it connects with my theory (wild-arse guess, really) of why Mild started getting darker around 1900: publicans needed a dark beer to dump their slops in. Dark Mild starts to appear at the time when draught Porter was disappearing from large parts of the country. That the process of darkening Mild began in the provinces earlier than in London reinforces my theory.

Now it's time to look back at Lion's performance so far. Scoring an average of 0.40 and coming seventh from seventeen, their Mild did reasonably well. The performance of their Burton was slightly worse in terms of position, eighth from fourteen, but better in terms of score, a very decent average of 1. Bitter is where the problem lay. It came joint eleventh of fourteen, averaging zero.

In terms of specs, the beer is towards to the top end in terms of gravity and ABV. Though they are all much of a muchness. The gravity was determined by the retail bracket they chose to drop Porter into. Pre-WW I, Porter and X Ale had been around the same gravity and price. After the war, many London brewers had X Ale as a 7d beer, implying a gravity of around 1043º. Sometimes they also kept the weaker type of Mild which evolved during the war, which was a 5d beer, with a gravity of around 1028º. A few opted for 6d Milds. But Porters were universally 6d beers, with gravities of around 1037º. I'm not sure why they did this. Presumably because people expected Porter to be cheap.

Let's look at how Lion Porter fared:

Lion Porter quality 1922 - 1923
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Flavour	score	Price
1922	Porter	1009.5	1034.5	3.24	72.46%	good ??	2	6d
1922	Porter	1008.2	1040.2	4.16	79.60%	poor	-1	6d
1922	Porter	1009.2	1039.2	3.89	76.53%	v poor	-3	6d
1923	Porter	1009.8	1038.3	3.70	74.41%	fair	1	6d
1923	Porter	1010	1037	3.50	72.97%	fair	1	6d
1923	Porter	1010.8	1038.3	3.56	71.80%	fair	1	6d
1923	Porter	1009.6	1035.1	3.30	72.65%	v fair	2	6d
1923	Porter	1010	1039	3.76	74.36%	v fair	2	6d
Average		1009.6	1037.7	3.64	74.35%		0.63
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

The answer is not that badly at all. 75% of the eight samples got a positive score and three got a healthy score of 2. Leaving a good overall average of 0.63. It's not a fantastic score, but much better than most so far.

Time-traveller advice: Lion houses are mostly a reasonable bet and some of the few where I'd advise risking ordering Porter.

Lion Brewery Pale Ale quality 1922 - 1925

Back to my interminable series on London beer quality in the 1920's

Let's kick off with a random newspaper article:

"FRIGHTFUL MURDER IN MISTAKE BY A MEDICAL STUDENT.
On Saturday morning, shortly after three o'clock, a determined murder was committed in the Belvedere-road, near to the foot of Hungerford Bridge, on the Surrey side of the water. It appears from the information at present obtainable that a man named George Merritt, a stoker, was on his way to his work to attend to the fires at the Lion Brewery. Just before he came to the gates he was stopped by a man who presented a pistol at him, and at once fired it. He managed to turn his head from the assassin, and the shot missed him. He at once began to run, and call for assistance, when a second shot was fired after him, which also missed. Whilst still running a third shot was fired after him, winch struck him in the neck. The assassin then came up to him, and, attacking him with a dagger, stabbed him several times. The reports of the pistol attracted the attention of the neighbourhood, and as the assassin was running away he was met at the top of Tenison-street by a policeman, who stopped him. He was taken back to the place from where the reports proceeded, and the unfortunate man was then found weltering in his blood. The assassin then said, when the light of the policeman's lantern was turned on his victim, "Why, that is not the man I wanted," The wounded man expired almost immediately, and the assassin was taken into custody.

From inquiries made it is stated that the assassin is an American by birth, respectably connected, well to do, and studying the medical profession. He came over to this country from New York about seven weeks ago, and at his lodgings conducted himself in every way as a gentleman. It is rumoured as a cause for the commission of the crime that he had lately been induced to visit some of the houses of ill-fame with which Tenison-street abounds, and in which many robberies of gentlemen are said to be committed ; and that a short time ago he himself was the victim of robbery in which a man for whom he was lying in wait took a prominent part. Instead of meeting and killing this man, as he intended, he met and killed the unfortunate victim, who was quietly proceeding to his work, and leaves a widow and six children to mourn his loss.

Lion Brewery and Tenison Street in 1896

Another account says:-

It would appear that last Christmas a man of gentlemanly appearance, and of fair complexion, presented himself at the door of No. 41, Tenison-street, York-road, Lambeth, and said that he wanted apartments. When asked who he was, he said that he was an American doctor, and that he had just come from America, via Liverpool. In manners, money, and address, he seemed, it is stated, a gentleman. He took the apartments he required, and he used to reside in them three days a week; the other days and nights he was absent from home. Whenever he went out he always carried with him a bowie-knife, a six chambered revolver, and a box of surgical instruments. For the last three days he has been in the habit of calling at the Lion Brewery, Belvedere-road, Lambeth, and asking whether a man named Pollington was employed there, and at what time he came to work. The inquirer's conduct was so curious, that it was deemed advisable to ascertain his name, and it was then discovered that it was W. C. Minar. On Saturday morning, at a quarter-past two o'clock, a policeman saw him standing in the doorway of the King's Head Tavern, Tenison-street. The constable passed on, and in a short time he heard three shots fired, and upon turning round he saw Minar coining towards him with a revolver in his hand, and he asked him whether he had shot any one, and added, "Is it a woman?" Minar replied, "No, I am not such a coward as to shoot a woman ; but I am afraid that I have shot the wrong man." He was at once arrested and taken to the Tower-street police station. When the police went to the spot from whence they heard the shots proceed they discovered, lying dead upon the stones outside the King s Head, the body of George Merritt, aged 36 years, a stoker, employed at the Lion Brewery Company. He had received a wound on the right temple caused by a bullet, and another wound right through the gullet. The latter wound was caused by a bullet which had gone right through the neck. The third bullet fired had broken off a piece of the stone of the public-house wall."
London Standard - Monday 19 February 1872, page 6.

The King's Head Tavern must be the building marked P.H. at the northern end of Tenison street. You can see how close it was to the brewery.

You'd have thought would be it for Minar. It was a pretty open and shut case of murder, with the gallows waiting.

This is a report of the trial:

"At the Kingston Assizes yesterday, William Chester Minor, an American surgeon, was indicted for the wilful murder of George Merritt. The deceased, it will be remembered, was employed at the Lion Brewery, Lambeth, and on going to his work at about two o'clock on the morning of the 14th of February was shot dead by the prisoner, to whom, however, he was an utter stranger. Witnesses from Connecticut were examined to prove that the prisoner had had sunstroke, and was subject to insane delusions. The jury acquitted him on the ground of insanity, and he was ordered to be detained during her Majesty's pleasure."
London Standard - Friday 05 April 1872, page 4.

The jammy git. He got off for being crazy. Though I'm not sure being locked up in a Victorian nut house was better than being hanged.

Right, on with Lion's Pale Ale. You can see that it's of the Ordinary Bitter type, with a typical gravity in the mid-1040's. To recap, Lion's Mild was ninth of eleven with a score of 0. Their Burton was eighth of fourteen with a score of 0.78. Pretty middle of the road.

Lion Brewery Pale Ale quality 1922 - 1925
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Appearance	Flavour	score	Price
1922	PA	1011	1046.5	4.61	76.34%	bright	good	2	8d
1922	PA	1009.9	1046.9	4.81	78.89%	bright	fair	1	8d
1922	PA	1011.7	1047.7	4.68	75.47%	bright	good	2	8d
1922	PA	1010.8	1046.8	4.68	76.92%	hazy	fair	1	8d
1923	PA	1010.8	1046.3	4.61	76.67%	not bright	hard	-1	8d
1923	PA	1011.2	1045.7	4.48	75.49%	bright	rank bitter	-3	8d
1923	PA	1011.2	1046.7	4.61	76.02%	hazy	gone off	-3	8d
1923	PA	1010.4	1044.4	4.42	76.58%	brilliant	v fair	2	8d
1923	PA	1010	1046.5	4.75	78.49%	fairly bright	sour	-3	8d
1925	PA	1009.6	1047.1	4.88	79.62%	fairly bright	v fair	2	7d
Average		1010.7	1046.5	4.65	77.05%			0.00
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

What a mixed bag that lot of samples are. Five of ten clear, which is about par for the course. Six of ten got a positive score for flavour. Which isn't too bad, but because three of the negative scores were -3, the average score was just 0. Don't know what to make of that. Did they just have some really incompetent landlords? Or maybe some of their pubs didn't sell much Bitter.

My advice: be very careful which of their pubs you drink in.

Lion Brewery Burton Ale quality 1922 - 1923

The Lion Brewery, if you remember, was the impressive country house-like pile on the bank of the Thames in Lambeth. With a giant lion on top of it. It's a real shame it was demolished and replaced by the Royal Festival Hall, a pile 1950's shit.

Lion Brewery in 1896

Once again the chairman used the annual general meeting to make political utterances. Unsurprisingly, about the level of taxation and the price of beer.

"Meetings.
Lion Brewery Company, Limited.
The annual general meeting was held in London on the 21st ult., Mr. Percy Gates, M.P. (chairman) presiding. The Chairman, moving the adoption of the report stated that the year 1922 had not been a good one for trade. The weather, with the exception of a few weeks in May and the early part of June, had been cold and wet, and not conducive to the consumption of beer; employment had been nose too good—in fact, the figures in November showed that a considerable percentage of the population was unemployed; and the price of beer to the consumer had in the circumstances been almost prohibitive. In 1914 the number of bulk barrels sold to the public was 37,558,767; in 1920 the number was 34,504,000; in  1921, 30,178,000, and in 1922, 26,545,000, and the Lion Brewery had shared in the universal reduction in trade. The Trade was still subject to the hop control, with the methods of which there was much dissatisfaction, and he could not see why brewers who had always taken their allocation of English hops should not have delivered to them the American hops which they had bought and paid for under contracts. He also urged that better arrangements should be made for the earlier delivery of the English crop. They were only now seeing the 1922 English crop, so that in consequence the hops were six months old before they reached the brewery.

He also referred to the anomaly of the hours in London. After pointing out that the amount of the debenture debt unredeemed was the small figure of £72,495, that the deposits and trade creditors were less than last year by £46,105, that the reserve account had been increased by £30,000, and the cash and investments by £44,978, the Chairman said that the gross profit on trading was much the same as in tho previous year, but that the rentals received were less by £5,097; that, on the other hand, the expenses were less by £5,764. and the interest payable by £2,696, so that the directors recommended the same dividends as were declared last year. It was impossible to forecast the future; that owing to unemployment, reduction of wages, and the continued high price of beer, trade continued to decline, and that it was more than possible that the estimate made by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer of a trade of 20,000,000 standard barrels for the year ending March 31, 1923, would not be realised ; that this was a very serious matter for the revenue of the country, and also for the agricultural districts, whose prosperity was bound up with the brewing industry. For whereas in the year 1914 52.5 millions of bushels of malt were sold, in the year 1922 the figure had dropped to 39.25 millions of bushels.

Although the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1922 reduced the income tax of the comparatively well-to-do by 1s. in the pound, he left untouched the income tax of the poorer classes, viz., the price of a pint of beer, and there was now an overwhelming case for such a reduction in duty as would admit of the reduction to the consumer of 2d. per pint. This would mean a reduction in duty of 50s, per standard barrel, and it was calculated that such a reduction would result in an immediate increase in consumption, which would reduce considerably the net cost to the Exchequer. A reduction of duty which would result in a reduction to the consumer of 1d. per pint would be quite inadequate, and would probably not result in increased consumption.

The report was adopted."
"The Brewers' journal, 1923", page 190.

Dropping the tax for the rich while leaving the tax on the poor the same? Sounds very much like the current British government.

Not sure what  "the anomaly of the hours in London" is on about,. Obviously something about pub opening times in London. For the life of me, I can't think what anomaly there was in them

A reduction of 50 shillings per standard barrel would have been a cut of 50% in the tax, which was at 100 shillings. That never happened. Though there was a reduction of sorts that allowed the price to drop by 1d per pint.

Moving on to Lion's Burton, I'll remind you that their Mild came seventh, with an average score of 0.4. The specs of their Burton are very standard in terms of gravity, attenuation and ABV. But what about flavour and clarity? Lets take a look:

Lion Brewery Burton Ale quality 1922 - 1923
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Appearance	Flavour	score
1922	KK	1011	1056.7	6.00	81.13%	cloudy	fair	1
1922	KK	1012	1054.3	5.47	77.35%	not bright	thin	-1
1922	KK	1014	1052.6	5.07	74.14%	v dark	good	2
1922	KK	1014	1053.1	5.13	74.39%	bright	fair	1
1923	KK	1014	1054.1	5.27	74.86%	rather hazy	good	2
1923	KK	1013	1054.6	5.47	76.92%	bright (pale)	v fair	2
1923	KK	1012	1054.4	5.47	77.21%	hazy	only fair	0
1923	KK	1012	1051.7	5.14	76.40%	not bright	v poor	-2
1923	KK	1013	1052.1	5.14	75.82%	very dark indeed	v fair	2
Average		1013	1053.73	5.35	76.47%			0.78
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

The clarity is again poor. Only two of nine samples are listed as bright. I'd really like to know what was going on here. Was it just poor cellarmanship? Did the brewers not fine their beers? With only two negative and six positive scores, Lion Burton does quite well in terms of flavour. And four of the positive scores are twos. Leaving an average score of 0.78.

Looks like your chances of getting a decent pint of Burton in a Lion Brewery pub look pretty good.