How much tax did beer drinkers pay during WW II?

I'm sure you've often wondered how much beer drinkers contributed to the UK's finances during WW II. A shedload would be a reasonable guess.

I already had the figures, but was only prompted to add them up when I came across this little article:

"BEER DRINKERS HAVE PAID £2,000 MILLION TO COUNTRY'S REVENUE
During the ten war and post-war years 1939-48 Britain's beer-drinkers, contributed through excise duty alone nearly £2,000 millions towards the country's revenue. The precise figure was £1,989,631.848. This and other surprising facts are revealed by the just-published handbook, Brewers' Almanack.

Now, however, the beer revenue is dropping rapidly because of the slump in beer-drinking, and to-day's tax of ninepence on the average public bar pint is yielding no more than did the sevenpence pint tax of two years ago.

Hopes for a return to better beer are suggested by the facts that the home barley yield has increased from 17,840,000 cwt in 1939 to 29,260,000cwt, in 1947; the hop yield has risen from 288,000 to 300,000 cwt, the wartime use of flaked barley and oats as brewing substitute is no longer compulsory, and brewers are now free to revert to the full use of malt.

Recent evidence of diminish-ing returns from high taxation may presage cheaper beer."
Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Wednesday 23 March 1949, page 4.

The number for WW II is obviously less than £2,000 million. Here are the full figures, plus some other numbers for fun:

UK beer output, tax and average OG 1939 - 1948
year	bulk barrels	Total Tax £	average OG
1939	24,674,992	62,370,034	1040.93
1940	25,366,782	75,157,022	1040.62
1941	26,203,803	133,450,205	1038.51
1942	29,860,798	157,254,430	1035.53
1943	29,296,672	209,584,343	1034.34
1944	30,478,289	263,170,703	1034.63
1945	31,332,852	278,876,870	1034.54
1946	32,650,200	295,305,369	1034.72
1947	29,261,398	250,350,829	1032.59
1948	30,408,634	264,112,043	1032.66
Total		1,989,631,848
Source:
1955 Brewers' Almanack, pages 50 & 80.

My numbers tally exactly with those in the article. Not surprising, as the source is the same.

Almost forgot, I promised to tell you how much tax was paid on beer during the war. It was £1,179,863,607. Which even today, after 75 years of inflation, is still an enormous sum.

Turning to another point made in the article, yes brewers no longer had to use oats and flaked barley. But that didn't mean they "reverted" to brewing all-malt. As most brewers had never worked that way. What really happened was that they went back to using flaked maize instead of flaked barley.

Note that the cheery article didn't mention that beer wasn't really getting any stronger. Though it was up minutely on its nadir, which was in 1947.

Fullers grists in 1946

Time to look at the ingredients Fullers were using in 1946, just after the war's end.

Little had changed since pre-war in terms of the grains Fullers employed. Other than Porter, which contained black malt, all their beers contained nothing other than base pale malt. The origin of the barley used to make that malt had changed. Gone were the Californian and Cape, replaced by more English malt. Not really surprising, as importing barley had been problematic and UK barley production had massively increased during the war. From 17,840,000 cwt. in 1939 to 42,160,000 cwt. in 1945. 

A change in adjunct, from flaked maize to flaked barley, was out of the brewery’s control. Driven by two factors: the unavailability of maize, which needed to be imported, and orders from the government to use flaked barley. Even breweries which had never used adjuncts before, such as Whitbread, were forced to have flaked barley in their grists.

The percentage of the malt in the grists fell a little, from around 80% to 77%. This was replaced by a little more unmalted grain and sugar, but it wasn’t a huge change.

The war had provoked little change in the sugars Fullers used, other than the addition of a new proprietary sugar, PEX. I haven’t the foggiest idea what was. But Fullers must have liked it as they were still using it in 1968.

The hops, as pre-war, remained all English and fairly fresh. In this case, as mixture of ones from the 1945 and 1946 harvests. Though there was also something called “hopulon”, of which 1 lb. was the equivalent of 7 lbs. of hops.

Fullers grists in 1946 (grains)
Date	Beer	Style	OG	pale malt	black malt	flaked barley
3rd Oct	X	Mild	1029.6	77.12%		15.42%
2nd Oct	PA	Pale Ale	1029.5	78.07%		16.26%
22nd Oct	P	Porter	1029.3	58.01%	11.60%	5.80%
25th Nov	BO	Strong Ale	1038.8	75.95%		16.16%
Source:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery

Fullers grists in 1946 (sugars)
Date	Beer	no. 2 sugar	glucose	PEX	Intense	Sp. Dark	Carameline	London caramel
3rd Oct	X		3.67%	2.20%	1.58%
2nd Oct	PA	2.17%	1.63%	1.63%	0.24%
22nd Oct	P			3.87%		15.47%	2.62%	2.62%
25th Nov	BO		4.31%	2.15%	1.42%
Source:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery

Drybrough 60/- grists 1938 - 1947

When it came to gristts, Drybrough was very typically Scottish. They used very little in the way of coloured malt, just a tiny amount of black or chocolate malt. The quantities are so small it could only have been for colour adjustment. Other than that, there’s only pale malt and a small quantity of enzymic malt.

Tell a lie, there was another type of malt Drybrough used: malted oats. Which is slightly odd. Not that they used oats. They didn’t have much option with that: brewers were instructed in early 1943 to replace flaked barley with oats. But in flaked, not malted, form. In fact, oats weren’t supposed to be malted at all. So where did Drybrough get theirs from?
The base malt percentage actually increased during the war. This wasn’t unusual as adjuncts like flaked maize became unavailable and sugar was diverted to food production.

In terms of adjuncts, the types of grains being used were totally out of the brewer’s control. At the start of the war brewers were told by the government to use flaked barley instead of flaked maize. In 1943 the government ordained that flaked oats should replace flaked barley. And, finally, in 1944 it was back to flaked barley. Messing around I’m sure brewers could have done without.

Drybrough continued to employ flaked barley after the end of the war, though after 1953 in conjunction with flaked maize. It was only around 1960 that they reverted to just flaked maize, as they had brewed before the war.

Drybrough 60/- grists 1938 - 1947 malts
Date	Year	OG	pale malt	black malt	choc. Malt	enzymic malt
14th Oct	1938	1038	72.04%	0.73%		1.76%
19th Oct	1939	1038	79.40%	0.32%		1.76%
3rd Jan	1940	1036	86.31%	0.56%		2.81%
3rd Feb	1941	1037	85.52%		0.23%	2.92%
11th Jul	1941	1034	88.84%		0.26%	2.70%
2nd Feb	1942	1032	83.02%		0.37%	3.11%
3rd Feb	1943	1032	80.77%			2.88%
14th Oct	1943	1032	72.84%			2.88%
17th Jan	1944	1032	72.54%		0.67%	2.81%
13th Jul	1944	1032	75.55%		0.59%	2.98%
8th Feb	1945	1032	76.44%		0.47%	2.39%
8th Oct	1946	1029	76.53%		0.33%	2.78%
23rd Oct	1947	1029	75.98%		0.63%	1.58%
Sources:
Drybrough brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers D/6/1/1/4 and D/6/1/1/5.

Drybrough 60/- grists 1938 - 1947 adjuncts
Date	Year	OG	flaked maize	flaked barley	flaked oats	malted oats
14th Oct	1938	1038	15.81%
19th Oct	1939	1038	8.82%
3rd Jan	1940	1036
3rd Feb	1941	1037
11th Jul	1941	1034
2nd Feb	1942	1032		4.15%
3rd Feb	1943	1032			7.69%
14th Oct	1943	1032			7.67%	7.67%
17th Jan	1944	1032		5.00%		10.01%
13th Jul	1944	1032		11.93%
8th Feb	1945	1032		12.74%
8th Oct	1946	1029		12.34%
23rd Oct	1947	1029		12.66%
Sources:
Drybrough brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers D/6/1/1/4 and D/6/1/1/5.

Brewing in WW II (part five)

We're still on grains. But I promise we'll get onto a more exciting topic soon. Like hops. You young people love you your hops. Not like us boring old twats.

This is great. The article discusses the increased use of unmalted grains during the war. Why is that brilliant? Because I have some great numbers on brewing materials. Ones I've been saving until now.

"The use of flaked barley became general quite early in the war as a malt adjunct, and as no restriction was placed on its use it helped to increase output. It was found to be readily converted in the mash tun and, as time has proved, when not used in excess, has had no directly deleterious effect on the beers, although it was not used at first without some misgivings on the part of the brewer. It increases the bulk of the mash, however, and when output was of so much moment some brewers replaced it by finely ground barley without any noticeable difference (cf. J. L. Baker, ibid., 1942, 109). Although a small proportion of the nitrogen constituents of flaked barley are rendered soluble in the mash tun it contributes but little yeast feeding material to the wort and therefore acts as a diluent to that contributed by the malt. This was a drawback in those breweries whose average gravity was low, although it certainly helped to correct and reduce the difficulties consequent on the use of poor quality malts."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing Volume 52, Issue 3, May-June, 1946, page 121.

There were two reasons why the government was keen on using unmalted barley: it saved on both fuel and labour. You can see how the usage of adjuncts increased during the war years:

Brewing materials (cwt)
year	malt		unmalted corn		rice, maize, etc		sugar		total malt & adjuncts
1938	9,378,888	78.31%	14,194	0.12%	688,086	5.75%	1,894,773	15.82%	11,975,941
1939	9,884,803	78.35%	9,910	0.08%	734,771	5.82%	1,986,478	15.75%	12,615,962
1940	9,857,838	83.81%	7,912	0.07%	363,588	3.09%	1,532,776	13.03%	11,762,114
1941	10,988,413	86.90%	11,897	0.09%	246,757	1.95%	1,397,642	11.05%	12,644,709
1942	10,918,102	85.54%	52,646	0.41%	382,207	2.99%	1,411,422	11.06%	12,764,377
1943	10,287,322	79.34%	40,592	0.31%	1,238,183	9.55%	1,400,573	10.80%	12,966,670
1944	10,621,168	78.88%	143,183	1.06%	1,241,121	9.22%	1,458,647	10.83%	13,464,119
1945	10,435,212	75.63%	245,751	1.78%	1,332,032	9.65%	1,784,064	12.93%	13,797,059
1946	9,976,998	76.53%	137,750	1.06%	1,132,748	8.69%	1,790,021	13.73%	13,037,517
1947	9,454,253	80.37%	92,974	0.79%	614,335	5.22%	1,601,186	13.61%	11,762,748
Source:
Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 62.

By the 1944 and 1945, the proportion of unmalted adjuncts was around 10% of the total - about double what it had been in 1938. While sugar fell from around 15% of the total pre-war to 10%. While the amount of malt itself increased in the middle war years. By the look of it to compensate for a reduction in the amount of sugar available.

But brewers were later forced to use an even less popular ingredient: flaked oats

"Early in 1943, when the shipping position became difficult owing to the intensified U boat activity, barley was required for use in bread, and brewers were asked to replace flaked barley by flaked oats, but there were some misgivings about its use on account of its high fat content. A series of investigations was carried out to prove its suitability in order to satisfy brewers that they could be used with safety; 10 per cent, was considered a safe maximum. Owing to its huskiness flaked oats had the advantage of improving drainage in the mash tun, although, owing to its bulkiness, those brewers working with a full mash tun found it to be a disadvantage. A bad oat harvest in the following year, however, caused its use in brewing to be discontinued. The Ministry of Food then suggested that flaked oats might be replaced by dried potatoes, the drying plants in beet sugar factories used for drying the exhausted beet slices being utilized for this purpose. Investigations carried out with potatoes dried in this manner, however, proved them to be quite unsuitable for use in brewing owing to the unpleasant flavour imparted to the beer, and as the anticipated surplus of potatoes did not materialize, flaked barley was again used to replace flaked oats, and has continued up to the present time."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing Volume 52, Issue 3, May-June, 1946, page 121.

Potatoes have been used in brewing. I've published a 19th-century recipe for potato Broyhan. So it is possible. I wonder if the Broyhan also suffered from a nasty flavour?

It's easiest to see the move to unmalted grains at Whitbread, because before the war they used no adjuncts, only malt and sugar. The first sighting of flaked barley is on 10th October 1941 in a brew of XX Mild Ale*. Significantly, IPA and PA brewed a few days later contained none. On 28th May 1942, in addition to flaked barley, barley meal and flaked rye is in the grists**. By now the adjuncts are in all Whitbread's beers.

In April 1943 flaked oats replaces all the other adjuncts***. The in February 1944 Whitbread switched back to using flaked barley****. You can see that Whitbread had little control over their grists but had adjunct them according to government policy and which raw materials were available.

Whitbread also occasionally used wheat malt. These tables should give a good impression of the decisions Whitbread had forced on them during the war years:

Whitbread Mild Ale 1938 - 1947
Date	Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp
25th Feb	1938	X	1035.3	1010.0	3.35	71.67%	7.44	1.11	1.25	1.25	65º
26th Sep	1939	X	1033.9	1010.5	3.10	69.03%	8.27	1.11	1.25	1	65º
25th Apr	1940	X	1033.5	1008.5	3.31	74.63%	8.12	1.12	1.25	1	65º
20th Nov	1940	XX	1031.1	1010.0	2.79	67.85%	8.42	1.07	1.17	0.75	66º
10th Oct	1941	XX	1031.2	1009.0	2.94	71.15%	6.38	0.76	1.25	1.25	65º
30th Jan	1942	XX	1029.1	1007.5	2.86	74.23%	5.84	0.75	1	1	65º
30th May	1942	XX	1028.4	1007.0	2.83	75.35%	6.19	0.75	1	1	65º
5th Apr	1943	XX	1027.8	1008.0	2.62	71.22%	6.07	0.76	1	1.25	65º
22nd Feb	1944	XX	1028.5	1009.0	2.58	68.42%	5.79	0.69	1	0.75	65º
4th Apr	1945	XX	1028.2	1009.0	2.54	68.09%	5.63	0.70	1	0.75	65º
12th Sep	1946	XX	1027.3	1008.0	2.55	70.70%	6.02	0.71	1	1	65º
3rd Jan	1947	XX	1027.5	1005.5	2.91	80.00%	6.02	0.68	1	0.75	65º
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/105, LMA/4453/D/01/107, LMA/4453/D/01/108, LMA/4453/D/01/109, LMA/4453/D/01/110, LMA/4453/D/01/111, LMA/4453/D/01/112, LMA/4453/D/01/114.

Whitbread Mild Ale grists 1938 - 1947
Date	Year	Beer	OG	pale malt	crystal malt	MA malt	PA malt	no. 3 sugar	other sugar	wheat malt	flaked barley	barley meal	flaked rye	flaked oat
25th Feb	1938	X	1035.3	72.97%	12.46%			13.05%	1.52%
26th Sep	1939	X	1033.9	75.73%	13.59%			9.06%	1.62%
25th Apr	1940	X	1033.5	24.30%	13.08%	54.21%		4.98%	1.56%	1.87%
20th Nov	1940	XX	1031.1	81.42%	11.63%				6.95%
10th Oct	1941	XX	1031.2	65.39%	11.98%	4.99%	4.99%		5.66%	2.00%	4.99%
30th Jan	1942	XX	1029.1		12.02%	68.11%		4.01%	1.84%	2.00%	12.02%
30th May	1942	XX	1028.4	46.32%	12.63%	16.84%		5.61%	1.75%	2.11%	8.42%	1.05%	5.26%
5th Apr	1943	XX	1027.8	9.28%	10.31%	55.67%		5.50%	1.72%					17.53%
22nd Feb	1944	XX	1028.5		10.45%	71.08%		4.18%	1.74%		12.54%
4th Apr	1945	XX	1028.2		7.38%	62.21%		9.84%	3.70%		16.87%
12th Sep	1946	XX	1027.3		7.85%	75.14%		10.47%	2.06%		4.49%
3rd Jan	1947	XX	1027.5		7.79%	81.26%		8.91%	2.04%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/105, LMA/4453/D/01/107, LMA/4453/D/01/108, LMA/4453/D/01/109, LMA/4453/D/01/110, LMA/4453/D/01/111, LMA/4453/D/01/112, LMA/4453/D/01/114.

There's only one constant in the grist: crystal malt. Not even mild malt and No. 3 invert sugar, staples of Dark Mild brewing, appear in every beer. When things were starting to get back to normal in 1947, Whitbread reverted to a grist of base malt, crystal malt and sugar.

Next time the excitement begins. We'll be looking at hops.







* Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/108.
** Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/109.
*** Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/110.
**** Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/111.

Adjuncts in WW II

Adjuncts. For some bizarre reason, a topic close to my heart. We're still with that fascinating article from "Wallenstein Laboratories Communications". A great source, if only because I've not seen anyone else use it.

I particularly like the way some of the measures forced on brewers balanced each other out. Gravities fell, but the amount of adjuncts was reduced.

"Wartime Adjuncts

Those breweries which previously had difficulties resulting from nitrogen deficiency have had their problems complicated by war conditions. This has been the case especially since the introduction of flaked barley and oats as part of the grist.  Prior to that, the effect of lowered gravities was often offset by reducing the proportion of malt adjuncts.

The perennial need for economy in shipping space for the purpose of bringing in food to England has led, among other things, to the use of barley flour in bread. One consequence of this was pressure, very strong pressure, from the Ministry of Food to get the brewing industry to replace 10 per cent of its barley with oats. Already flaked barley was being used by many brewers as a  wartime device. Actually the barley so flaked was usually of good malting quality and simply could not be malted because of labor difficulties. It probably also saved fuel. By the use of flaked barley as a malt substitute, the extract provided was over and above that available from the restricted supplies of malt and sugar. With the release of barley for other uses by the Food Ministry, flaked oats and not flaked barley were slated for future use, although malted oats are being preferred in a few cases.

Flaked barley and oats have been manufactured by a process involving crushing, wetting, cooking wet up to 300-500°F and finally drying. Neither the germs nor the husks are removed. The enzymes are destroyed, but the starch is only slightly gelatinized. Neither of the flaked materials has presented serious technical difficulties. For the most part brewings have been normal, the change-over from flaked barley to flaked oats being scarcely noticeable in the breweries which had been using the former. Perhaps the chief problem has been concerned with securing a proper mixture of malt and oats in the grist, and special devices have been introduced for this purpose. Grinding times have had to be increased. Some brewers use ordinary raw oats which must be finely ground for them in a flour mill. Careful mixing with the malt grist is still necessary. Since flaked or raw oats yield only about two-thirds as much extract as malt, almost 15 per cent is needed to replace 10 per cent of barley in the grist. Apart from this, flaked oats are more bulky than malt, so that brewers who have already been using their mash tuns to full capacity need an occasional extra brew in some cases.

One advantage which has resulted from the use of flaked oats is that the considerable quantity of husk contributed has improved and hastened drainage of the wort from the mash tun and has thereby compensated largely for the loss of the bold-husked California malts no longer available. Flaked barley is less serviceable in this respect. Very few, if any, British brewers use a mash filter, and the time taken to sparge and drain mash tuns is a serious item in the day's brewing, that with labor shortages and blackout difficulties.

As might be expected, the British infusion system of mashing with typical English malt results in bringing only one tenth or less of the nitrogen in flaked oats into solution. Troubles anticipated from the lack of yeast nutrients in present-day, low-gravity worts have been rendered even more likely by the substitution of oats for malt or flaked barley. There already have been reports of such troubles. A few brewers have complained that the draught beers do not fine (when isinglass finings are added to the beer in cask) so easily since the inclusion of the oats, while many others have been gratified to observe no difference. A slight change in flavor has been noted by most brewers when as much as 15 per cent of the grist is composed of oats. This change is usually described as a dryness or slight loss of character, but it is so small as to pass almost without comment in the trade.

British brewers use malts of diastatic power 25° to 45° Lintner, which must seem incredibly low to the American brewer. Nevertheless, these malts are able to digest the increased amounts of non-malted adjuncts such as these flaked materials. No doubt the steady improvement in English barley, resulting from research and judicious buying in the trade during the past twenty years or so, has helped. The crops of the 1938 and 1939 seasons were excellent, those of 1940 and 1941 not so good. The chief objection to the 1942 crop was the generally low extract obtained from the malts, yet the diastatic power of these malts was as a rule high. Perhaps this has helped the digestion of flaked oats and ground, unflaked oats this year. Of course, it is the alpha-amylase of the malt that is mainly concerned, and the Lintner values normally determined in Great Britain tell us little directly of this.
"Wallenstein Laboratories Communications, December 1943, Volume VI, number 19" pages 155 - 156.

The government were very keen to get brewers to use oats. Partly because of a bumper crop in 1942. Also, I suppose, because barley was easier to slip unnoticed into bread. I wonder if the flaked barley that makes up 20% of the grist of modern Guinness was of malting quality? Somehow I doubt it.

See there's another example of measures balancing each other out. The husks of oats made up for the loss of husky Californian malt in the grist. See, there's another reason for the use of malt made from foreign barley in British beers. The coarser husks helped mash-tun drainage. Using raw oats seems a bit weird. Especially as brewers couldn't grind it themselves to the required flour. And wouldn't flour be likely to cause a stuck mash?

We also learn of the effect of these substitutions on the finished beer. Dryness. I can understand that. But what does "slight loss of character" mean? Blander, less flavoursome? It's surprising how little impact 15% oats appear to have made. Though I know brewers weren't very keen on using oats. But they're a conservative bunch often, brewers. Perhaps it was just prejudice rather than real objections. It would be nice to have the opinion of ordinary drinkers on the effect of oats on their favourite. Maybe they were happy enough at having a beer at all to worry about any changes in flavour.