Cellarmanship in the 1920s (part one)

I can't remember who pointed me at "The Art and Practice of Innkeeping". I suspect it was Boak and Bailey. I'm grateful, whoever it was. And it's going to come in dead handy when I revise Peace!. (I currently have that pencilled in for 2021, after I've finished Free!.)

I'm particularly interested in the section on cellarmanship. Partly because I know how much trouble there was keeping cask beer in good condition in the early 1920s.

Before WW I, pretty much all draught beer in London was over 5% ABV. Meaning it wasn't going to sour all that quickly, even if not particularly well handled in the pub. After the big fall in strength during WW I, most draught beer was 4% ABV, or even less. And was consequently much more prone to spoiling. Making good cellarmanship vital.

Let's kick off with something about cask sizes:

"Casks of beer are usually in four sizes: hogsheads, containing fifty-four gallons; barrels, containing thirty-six gallons; kilderkins, containing eighteen gallons; and firkms, containing nine gallons.

In some places, and in home-brewing houses, a Tierce is used containing forty-two gallons.

In houses where the trade is large and quick, beer is generally supplied in hogsheads; where it is normal, in barrels; where small, in kilderkins; firkins are more often used for "off" or family trade. Butts, holding one hundred and eight gallons, and puncheons, holding seventy-two, are rarely if ever used nowadays, even for porter."
"The Art and Practice of Innkeeping" by Alexander Francis Part, published by Heinemann London, 1922, page 198.

The four basic sizes of casks remain the same, though hogsheads are pretty much extinct today and barrels are rare. Large pubs now get their beer in firkins, normal ones in firkins and small ones even in pins. That's quite a downgrading.

When I started drinking ion the early 1970s, some of the larger regional breweries in the North and the Midlands still delivered in hogsheads and the bulk of their beer was in barrels. Does anyone still deliver in barrels today?

The "off" trade is referring to off-licences selling draught beer. Back in the 1970s, there were still offies in Leeds selling Tetley Bitter and Mild this way. The family trade means people buying casks for at home. Though by the time this book waswritten, that practice was dying out as drinkers switched to bottled beer which was less fuss.

I've never come across a tierce in any brewing records. I suspect they weren't very common. But Part does exclude one cask size I've seen very regularly: a half hogshead. These were commonly used in Scotland for beer that was sent out to independent bottlers for bottling.

More barrrel-sized fun

I just remembered something. William Younger always recorded what they racked into in their brewing records.

Which means I can see exactly what sized of barrels they used. The last William Younger logs I have are from 1949-1950. What sorts of barrels were they using? You can probably guess. But here they are:

It says something that the pre-printed form includes butts, but nothing smaller than a quarter hogshead (18 barrels) of half barrel (also 18 barrels). You can see that XXP, a Bitter of 1032º, was only filled into hogsgeads and barrels.

The second beer in the image is No. 3 Bottling. That is, the bottling version of their No.3 Strong Ale (or Scotch Ale, depending on which side of the border you were). It's no conicidence that it was mostly racked into hogsheads. Most wouldn't have been bottled by Younger themselves, but by third party bottlers. Beer was usually delivered to these in hogsheads.

XXPS, a stronger Bitter of 1037º, wasn't filled into hogshead, but barrels, kilderkins and half hogsheads (27 barrels). Logical enough. As a draught beer you'd expect less to have been filled into hogsheads.

The last beer in DBS, Younger's Stout, was racked into a wide variation of cask sizes. They didn't brew a huge amount of DBS, so it might seem strange that some went into hogsheads. But this was another bottled beer. I'm more surprised at the small size of some casks. Presumably relatively low demand meant bottlers took smaller casks than with more popular styles.

Where are all the effing firkins?

I was glancing through my Boddingtons records yesterday and spotted something. One of the handy totals you sometimes find at year or month end.

It's of their stock of bee in casks at the end of 1984:

H = 54 gallon hogshead
B -= 36 gallon barrel
K = 18 gallon kilderkin
F = 9 gallon firkin

The fact that they only had a single firkin in stock says everything about the change in barrel size over the last 30 years.

Almost half of the stock of Bitter was in hogsheads. I have heard rumours that Holts still use them, though I haven't had that confirmed. I doubt very much if anyone else still bothers with them. I'm sure there are still regional breweries using barrels. I'd put money on Sam Smiths. But the vast majority of casl beer now comes in kilderkins and firkins.

Boddie's pubs must have still been shifting Mild quite quickly, given the majority of it was in full barrels. I doubt anyone fills anything larger than kilderkins with Mild any more.

One last point pops into my mind. How long would that stock have been intended to last?  If it were a week's stock, that would mean Boddingtons were only brewing around 35,000 barrels a year. But I'm pretty sure that they brewed at least 200,000. Divide 200,000 by 700 and you get 285. It looks like they didn't have much more than a day's supply of draught beer in stock.

Where in the world?

Barrels, barrels everywhere.

But where are these?

Or these?

And these?

Barrels, barrels everywhere. Where do they all come from? Where do they all belong?

Restrictions lifted

Today we’re going to see a couple of examples of just how much was under government control during the war and its aftermath.

First wood. All import of hardwood had been under government control. Until 1950, a mere 5 years after war’s end.

“15TH DECEMBER
Hardwood (De-control)
MR. H. WILSON (President, Board of Trade) made the following announcement: I am satisfied that the need for continuing to import hardwood on Government account has ended, and all hardwood will therefore revert to private trading on 16th January next. At the same time, price control of imported hardwoods will be removed. Details of the scheme for reversion to private buying have been worked out by my officials with a committee of the hardwood trade and will be announced shortly. It will, moreover, be possible, as part of the additional measures of import relaxation just announced, to permit any private trader to import hardwood freely from a wide range of countries.

There are a few types of speciality hardwoods essential for industrial use, and not available from other parts of the world, which have to be obtained from dollar countries, and will continue to be obtained from dollar countries.”
"Brewing Trade Review, 1950", page 81.

Why would hardwood be so important to brewers? Because that’s what barrels were made from. WW II had a really bad effect on the supply of oak staves for barrels. Memel oak, from the Eastern Baltic had been the brewer’s choice because it imparted little or no flavour to beer. Unlike French and American oak. Once war broke it was impossible to get Memel oak. American oak, because of its strong flavour wasn’t a very acceptable substitute.

Dollar countries presumably refers to countries that insisted on being paid in dollars. Britain was short of foreign exchange after the war so this was a big deal.

This restriction was of more direct impact to brewers:

“IMPORT RESTRICTIONS LIFTED
Labelling machinery is noted in a further list of commodities which it is proposed to free from the necessity for import licences, and which will take effect from 5th January, 1950. A summary of the original list appeared on page 812 of the November, 1949, Brewing Trade Review, and a list of the countries excepted from the scope of open general licences was given on page 857 of that issue.”
"Brewing Trade Review, 1950", page 41.

I wonder where they imported labelling machinery from?

Restrictions like these were the reason some breweries required huge investment by the middle of the 1950’s when they may have seen no new equipment for more than a decade. It’s one of the factors that prompted many to sell up.

Oak and WW II (part two)

I've been meaning to post the second part of the Brewers' Journal article on American oak for some time. But, as you know, I'm easily distracted. I think it's worth the wait. Because it's another piece in a jigsaw I've been trying to finish for a couple of years.

BREWING NOTES.

American Oak (continued).

In last month's notes an account was given of the work carried out by the Institute of Brewing after the last war in connection with the use of American oak for beer casks in this country, and a brief summary of the conclusions then reached was included. This month a more difficult point is under discussion — viz., how to treat American oak so as to prevent, or minimise, the objectionable flavour which it notoriously tends to impart to British beers.

Opinions in the brewing industry vary enormously on the suitability or otherwise of American oak for British beers, some asserting that if properly treated it provides quite a suitable cask material, whilst others are equally vehement in its condemnation.

This divergence of opinion suggests that the extractiveness of different beers may vary, and that whereas one beer may suffer little from contact with this type of timber, others extract therefrom undesirable flavouring substances which give rise to "tainted" or "woody " complaints.

A more feasible hypothesis is, perhaps, that different types of "white oak" have been used in the different cases, or that the treatments employed have been different. A cask made from newly felled, unseasoned "white oak" of an unsuitable species is sure to give violently disagreeable flavours when it is filled with beer, no matter what preliminary treatment may have been employed to minimise this. We have had personal experience  of casks of this type, and we can testify that even when lined, "pickled" and treated by every - known trick, they will continue to contaminate every lot of beer with which they are filled, until they are eventually broken down and thrown away. Even one stave of timber of this kind is enough to taint the whole contents of the cask.

Careful selection of timber by an experienced buyer is essential at the very start if any success is to be obtained with American oak casks. The timber must be carefully stacked and seasoned, and should not be used as long as there is any sign of wetness. Even with well-chosen, well-seasoned timber, lining is probably advisable, and even essential in many cases. The ideal lining from the flavour point of view is something completely insulating the beer from contact with the timber. Pitch probably fulfils this condition best, but few British breweries are equipped with the plant necessary for this process, so one of the proprietary enamels will probably be the best choice for lining purposes. These enamels, which consist of plastic material dissolved in a volatile organic solvent, act partly by penetrating the pores of the timber rather than as impervious linings, and there is no doubt that they minimise "taint" due to the use of American oak in a large number of casts. Miracles should not be expected, however, and every care should be taken in the original selection and treatment of the timber so that violent taint is avoided in the first place.

Heavy firing of the cask is another expedient which may be found successful in combating timber taint in some cases.
"The Brewers' Journal 1940" page 571. (Published July 17th, 1940.)

It's not so much the fact that some American oak made beer pong that interests me. Though, given that a single stave of the wrong oak was enough to bugger any beer put into the barrel, it was a pretty serious problem. No, it's not that. It's the suggested remedy. Lining.

I've been looking for hard evidence on the lining of wooden barrels in Britain for some time. It's frustratingly difficult to track down. But this article provides some vital clues.

For the wood to taint beer, they need to come into direct contact. So the implication of this article is that barrels weren't usually lined. If they were, you wouldn't need to worry about a funny taste from the oak. The assertion "few British breweries are equipped with the plant necessary for this process" about pitch-lining makes it clear that this practice wasn't common.

I now feel confident in saying that most British barrels were unlined until at least 1940. Good to know.

Oak and WW II

Britain's brewing industry ceased self-sufficiency long before the 20th century. I've already catalogued the dependence on imported hops and barley. But the raw materials for brewing weren't the only vital imports. Large quantities of oak were needed for barrels. And where did that come from?

Before I answer that question, I want to bang one of my favourite drums again. The one about whether British barrels were lined or not. It's a funny one, because finding definitive evidence has been remarkably difficult. If you think about it, it's not surprising that brewing texts make no mention of lining barrels. Why discuss something you don't do? The rare times the topic does crop up, it's in relation to continental practices. The evidence against lining is mostly indirect. Like how to treat new barrels to stop them adding a woody taste to the beer inside them. I've more such evidence below.

Britain's own native oak, while eminently suitable for barrels, had been used up long before WW II. If you've been paying attention to the discussion of the Burton brewers Baltic trade, you'll remember that it was often on a barter basis. In return for beer they took barrel staves. Memel oak it was usually called. Which, as the region in question has changed nationality a few times in the last couple of hundred years, is a more accurate designation than Poland or Russia. (I mentioned Memel to my son Andrew this morning while waiting for the bus. "That's the north of East Prussia isn't it?" Clever boy.)

In 1940, I can't imagine any oak was being shipped across the Baltic to Britain. It wasn't a new problem. The same difficulty arose during WW I. And during the Napoleonic Wars, in the period when Russia was allied with France.

American Oak.

One of the biggest problems facing brewers at the present time is that concerning cask timber. After Russian and Polish oak American oak is the material to which one's attention naturally turns in these times, and many brewers must be much concerned at the prospect of having to use a material so well known to communicate undesirable woody and other flavours to British ales, particularly those of pale ale type. English oak is stated to be devoid of these defects, but it is doubtful if sufficient of this material is likely to be available to alleviate the cask timber problem to any marked extent. It is to American oak, therefore, that one must look for relief, and the question immediately arises: How can this timber be treated in order to make it suitable for use with British top fermentation beers ?

It may as well be stated at once that there is no simple answer to this all-important question. The whole matter was gone into very thoroughly after the last war, and no very satisfactory conclusions were reached as to the cause and cure of the strong flavour communicated to beer by the use of casks of American oak. The problem turned out to be much more difficult and complex than was expected, so it is felt that a brief summary of the work carried out by Professors Groom and Schryoer may assist brewers to understand the nature of the problem.

The objectionable "woody" taint may be due to—

1. The use of the wrong species of oak ("American white oak" is a very broad term and many different species or types of oak may find inclusion in this collective name).

2. The felling of the right species of oak at the wrong season of the year.

3. The use of heartwood of an appropriate species which is either too old, or (what is more likely) too young.

The differences between the suitability of the various species included in the term "American white oak" for beer-cask making appear to be due, "not to any specific extractive which imparts a deleterious flavour to the beer, but rather to fundamental differences in the chemical and physical properties of the timbers themselves."

It was further found that the ability to impart the objectionable flavour was not produced by the method of cutting the staves, nor by the presence of sapwood, or by the presence of micro-organisms in the wood. The last point was gone into with special care, for the heartwood  of which the staves were made was found to contain large quantities of starch, which might have been expected to promote growth of moulds and bacteria. This was a feasible hypothesis, particularly since micro-organisms of these types are capable of producing curious "mouldy" or "musty" odours and flavours, not greatly dissimilar from the "taint" of American oak. It was found, however, that this hypothesis was incorrect, the "taint" being inherent in the timber itself and not due to microbiological action.
"The Brewers' Journal 1940" page 496. (Published June 19th, 1940.)

I think it's pretty clear that beer was coming into direct contact with the wood of the barrel. Otherwise how could the oak "communicate undesirable woody and other flavours"? What I don't quite grasp is why this problem should be so particularly acute with British type top-fermenting beers. Unless, of course, it's just because everyone else did line their barrels.

How did they overcome these problems with American oak? You'll have to wait for part two of the article. Or rather for me to transcribe part two. It was published almost three-quarters of a century ago.