Whitbread's bottled beers in 1934

Time to look at the bottled beers in Whitbread’s 1934 price list. Which includes, in addition to the four beers brewed in their Chiswell Street brewery, several produced elsewhere. Which is handy, as it gives a better idea of the beers actually available in a London pub.

The four Chiswell Street beers are the first in list. There appear to be four beers: London Stout, Oatmeal Stout, India Pale Ale and Double Brown. Though the two Stouts were, in reality, identical.

The two Forest beers came from the Forest Gate Hill brewery, which Whitbread bought in 1924. One of their main reasons for purchasing the brewery was to get hold of modern, sediment-free bottling technology. Whitbread having stuck with bottle-conditioning until after WW I.

Based on the price, I’m guessing that the two Forest beers were around 1040º. Hang on. I have an analysis from 1934. It gives the OG as 1039º. So, my guess was pretty close.

Pioneer Ale and Stout were brands of the Lovibond brewery. Not sure why Whitbread were selling them, as I can’t find any connection between the two breweries. I know from analyses in the Whitbread Gravity Book that both beers were around 1030º. 

As already mentioned, Mackeson Milk Stout was being sold at a premium. Based on its gravity in the mid-1050ºs , it falls in the 9d per pint class. But it was sold for 10d per pint.

Something similar is happening with Guinness Extra Stout and Bass Pale Ale. Both of those also had gravities in the mid-1050ºs, but also retailed at 10d per pint. Which was a 1d per pint premium over the expected price. 

Both Bass and Guinness were widely available in other brewers’ tied houses. Usually being bottled by the other brewery, too. The premium charged reflects the renown of the two beers.

In addition to the above prices, a deposit was charged on the bottles of 1d per half pint, 2d per pint and 3d per flagon.  Which, especially in the case of cheaper beers, was a considerable percentage of the total price paid. 

Whitbread's bottled beers in 1934
	Per doz. Botts		Per doz. Half-botts	crates of four flagons
	Wholesale	Retail	Wholesale	Wholesale	Retail
London Stout	6/1d	8/-	—	3/10d	5/-
do. ("Special Whitbread")	—	—	3/6d	—	—
Oatmeal Stout	6/1d	8/-	—	3/10d	5/-
India Pale Ale	5/4d	7/-	—	3/4d	4/4d
do. ("Small Whitbread")	—	—	3/1d	—	—
Double Brown	7/-	9/-	4/-	4/5d	5/8d
(A fine strong ale)
FOREST ALE AND STOUT
Oatmeal Stout	5/4d	7/-	3/1d	3/4d	4/4d
Brown Ale	5/4d	7/-	3/1d	3/4d	4/4d
PIONEER ALE AND STOUT
Family Stout	4/6d	6/-	—	2/10d	3/8d
Family Ale	4/6d	6/-	—	2/10d	3/8d
MACKESON'S MILK STOUT
Milk Stout	7/8d	10/-	4/2d	4/10d	6/-
Bass	8/8d	10/-	5/-
Guinness	8/8d	10/-	5/-
Bass Barley Wine in nips
Source:
A 1934 Whitbread price list.

 

 

More price list fun

To follow on from my post about London draught beers in the 1930s, here's Whitbread's price list from 1934.

As it includes the prices for various cask sizes, it must be a trade list, That is, for publicans. Though it does include the public bar price per pint. In the posher rooms, such as the saloon or lounge, 1d more per pint would have been charged.

To put the cask into context, in 1914, a 36-gallon barrel of X Ale cost 36/- That was for a beer of 1050º. While 1934 X Ale was 1036º. That's about 2.5 times more expensive and 28% weaker. Quite a change. The reason? Extra tax piled on as a result of WW I.

What else can I spin out of this scrap of source material? The final line. Where XXX is crossed out, replaced by 33. A more expensive beer.

Why is the new beer call '33? Because that's when the disastrous tax increase of 1931 was reversed. To celebrate. Whitbread bumped up the gravity of their Burton Ale from 1045º to 1061º*. While also bumping up the price by 1d per pint. I think I would have been able to live with that. But I'm a pisshwead, as Mikey keeps reminding me.

Interesting that Porter and Stout come first on the list. That must be a hangover of Whitbread's time as an early Porter brewer. And one of the largest.

Oh, the Light Ale. That was dark. A piss-weak Dark Mild. Slightly confusing, the name. 

 

 

* Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/099 and LMA/4453/D/01/100. 

Fitch & Wilson

I was looking for something completely different. Well, same thing, a price list, but for a completely different brewery. I hate to let any discovery go to waste

I set about extracting the details to my price list spreadsheet. Which is when I noticed something odd. The Strong Ales could be "Mild or bitter, as preferred". Does that mean either young or aged? Or just that one was more heavily hopped?

The X's are used inconsistently, too. XX Very Strong is more expensive, and hence stronger, than both XXX and XXXX. And what the hell does Osborne mean?

A - a designation usually reserved for the weakest of Mild Ales - here is used for something super strong. 2 shillings and sixpence per gallon is incredibly expensive. It implies something well north of 1100º. Queens Cordial I'm guessing was their brand name for it. Unless it was some generic name for a very strong beer.

 

Alcester Chronicle - Saturday 25 June 1881 , page 1.

 The warning and the end is very revealing, too.

"All the Strong and Pale Ales are season brewed, and well matured in cask, the finest qualities of Malt and Hops alone being used in their manufacture; the Dinner Ales are intended for ordinary use, and should not be kept too long in draught if perfection is desired."

It sounds like the Strong and Pale Ales were all Stock Ales and would keep well. While the Dinner Ales you'd best drink pretty quickly.

The Dinner Ales must surely be Mild Ales. Maybe they only called them Dinner ales for their home trade. Which is whom the advert is aimed at.

Eldridge Pope beers in the 1890s

Been looking at some Eldridge Pope records. And realised that I have a matching price list. Which is always good.

It means that I can match up brew house and trade names. In this case, that's not so difficult as they're mostly the same. Though I'm not so sure about the three different types of XXX, Burton, Old and Mild. I've only got photos of one XXX. Not sure which of the three it is. But they were probably all the same strength as they're the same price.

No surprise that the weakest Mild and weakest Pale Ale are the best value for money. Nor that the top-of-the-range Pale Ale is the worst value.

These are the draught beers. There were also two bottled beers: IPA and Crystal Ale. The former is  bottled PA, while the latter I assume is a version of AK, which is called BAK in the brewing records. More proof of the total lack of logic in the use of the terms PA and IPA in the UK.

BAK, incidentally, was one of the beers in the parti-gyle of the very first brew of Hardy Ale.

Eldridge Pope beers in the 1890s
Advert name	price per barrel (shillings)	price per º	brewhouse name	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
Pale Ale	54	0.94	PA	1057.6	1014.4	5.72	75.00%	10.50	2.56
K Bitter Ale	42	0.82	KK	1051.5	1014.1	4.95	72.58%	6.81	1.50
AK Bitter Ale	36	0.74	AK	1048.5	1011.9	4.84	75.43%	7.03	1.44
XXXX Strong Old Ale	63	0.84	XXXX	1074.8	1023.8	6.74	68.15%	8.95	2.82
M XXX Burton Ale	54	0.83	XXX	1065.1	1018.6	6.16	71.49%	6.25	1.75
XXX Old or Mild Ale	54	0.83	XXX	1065.1	1018.6	6.16	71.49%	6.25	1.75
XX Mild Ale	36	0.73	XX	1049.0	1011.6	4.95	76.27%	4.36	0.91
Stout Double Stout	54	0.88	S	1061.5	1026.9	4.58	56.31%	9.43	2.50
Sources:
Eldridge Pope brewing records
Hampshire Chronicle - Saturday 25 January 1890, page 2.

Boring numbers

Among my more weird hobbies is collecting old brewery price lists. And being an obsessive, I slot them into tables. I'm, over 5,000, if you're wondering.

After beerfoodtravel posted a price list from an Irish brewery, I couldn't help but harvest it. Then I thought: I can get an easy blog post out of this. As I was sure I had English price lists from the same year, 1884. And sure enough, I did.

I can't be arsed to provide an erudite commentary. Look for yourselves.

I will remark, however, that Keily's IPA was priced at the same level as English ones.

Patrick Keily & Sons of Waterford, Ireland beers in 1884
beer	price per barrel (shillings)
"Sampson" Ale (XXXX) sweet	60
Indian Pale, bitter	54
Strong XXX, mild	48
The Half-Guines Family Ale	42
Sampson Stout (XXXX) Especially recommended for Invalids	60
Export Double Stout	48
Medium (family stout)	42
Single Porter	36
Source:
Waterford Standard

Cromwell Brewery of Newark beers in 1884
beer	price per barrel (shillings)
X Ale	36
XX Ale	42
XXX Ale	48
XXXX Ale	54
India Pale Ale	54
India Pale Ale	60
Stout	42
Stout	48

Henry Smith & Sons of Stockport beers in 1884
beer	price per barrel (shillings)
Harvest Beer	36
K Mild Ale	36
SA Mild Ale	42
XX Mild Ale	48
XXX Mild Ale	54
BB Bitter Ale	48
E IPA Pale Ale	54
XP Porter	36
XXP Porter	48
DBS Double Brown Stout	54

Edwin Finn beers in 1884
beer	price per barrel (shillings)
XXX Strong Ale	56
XX India Ale	48
X India Ale	42
BA Light Bitter Ale	42
X Mild Ale	36
Brown Stout	52
Porter	36
Source:
Pike's Weald of Kent & Romney Marsh Directory, 1884-85

Overton of Croydon beers in 1884
beer	price per barrel (shillings)
Family Vigour Ale	42
IPA No.1 Ale	48
PA No. 2 Ale	42
XK Bitter Ale	36
XXX Mild Ale	54
XXK Mild Ale	42
XX Mild Ale	36
DS Double Stout	54
S Stout	42
P Porter	36
Source:
Pike's Weald of Kent & Romney Marsh Directory, 1884-85

Leney of Wateringbury beers in 1884
beer	price per barrel (shillings)
XXXX Strong Ale	72
XXX Strong Ale	63
SXXX Store Ale	54
XX Mild Ale	54
BXX Bitter Ale	54
AK Pale Ale	42
BB Bitter Ale	36
X Mild Beer	36
S Stout	54
XX Porter	36
Source:
Pike's Weald of Kent & Romney Marsh Directory, 1884-85

Random brewery - Clarkson's Berkshire Brewery

You'd never believe it, but I've been searching the newspaper archive looking for something about Simonds of Reading. Particularly unsuccessfully. It didn't help that I spelled Simonds with two M's. I can never remember that. No idea why.

Here's an advert for another Reading brewery that I did find.

Here's the text in, er, text form:

"BERKSHIRE BREWERY,
KING'S ROAD, READING.
A. CLARKSON'S Fine ALE and BEER, equal to the best Home-brewed, being brewed from the best Malt and Hops that can be produced, regardless of expense.

MR. A. CLARKSON begs leave to return his sincere thanks to his numerous friends and supporters, for the very liberal patronage they have been pleased to bestow upon him since his commencement in the Brewing business. He also begs leave to inform his friends and the inhabitants of Reading and the vicinity that his Fine Mild October ALES of the present season, are now ready for consumption, which he can confidently recommend to all who love a glass of pure Home-brewed Beer.

Orders thankfully received and punctually attended to at No. 53, King's Road, Reading.

Supplied in Casks, of any size, at the following prices:"
Berkshire Chronicle - Saturday 24 January 1852, page 1.

Why have I bothered?  A couple of reasons. First, that the brewer claims his beer is as good as home brewed. What commercial brewery today would make that claim?  I'm pretty sure by home brewed he means domestically brewed beer. Which had a good reputation because domestic brewers didn't skimp on ingredients.

Secondly, there's a distinction made between Ale and Beer. Even though there's only one Beer in the list, T.B. or Table Beer. All the others being Ales.

Thirdly, the use of the phrase "Fine Mild October ALES". Why? Because October Ales and Beers were usually Stock or Old, not Mild. Never seen Mild October Ales before. I thought the whole point of brewing them in October was because they kept better. Not something that's very relevant with an Ale that's going to be sold young.

And finally, the fact that there are only Ales and a Table Beer. No Pale Ales but, more unusually, neither Porter nor Stout. Very odd.

Why no potted history of the brewery? Because it deosn't get a mention in "A Century of British Brewers Plus". There is something in there called the Berkshire Brewery. But it's a much later brewery. Because that was the name of the huge Courage brewery in Worton Grange, the one which replaced the Simonds brewery in Reading.

Amazing how many words I span out of that random find.

Random brewery price list - Crowley of Alton

This one isn't an obscure, unimportant brewery. Because this was the brewery founded by James Baverstock in 1763*.

In the 1760's, James Baverstock Jnr. carried out some of the first serious experiments with the thermometer and the hydrometer in the brewery**. It was the beginning of scientific brewing. Which makes the brewery incredibly important in the history of brewing.

The brewery was bought by the Crowley family in 1821 and it operated as Crowly and Co. until it was taken over by Watney in 1947. It must have been a decent size, because it had 248 pubs. It closed in 1970***.

Here are the brewery's beers from 1870:

Salisbury and Winchester Journal - Saturday 19 February 1870, page 4.

Looks like they specialised in Pale Ales, which isn't surprising seeing as they were located in Alton. Which, if you remember from a couple of days back, had similar water to Burton. It's the B that I find interesting. At only 32 shillings a barrel, it can't have been more than about 1045º. Pretty damn weak, even for a Light Bitter, at that time.

What else? A nice use of theterm Imperial Mild. That really is a ting range of Mild Ales. Just a weak and a very strong one. And just one Stout. Like I said, clearly a Pale Ale specialist.

Here's my guess at the gravities:

Crowley beers in 1870
	price per barrel	guess OG
BBB Bitter Ale	54	1065
BB Bitter Ale	44	1055
B Bitter Ale	32	1045
Imperial (Old or Mild)	60	1095
X	36	1055
Stout	54	1085
Porter	36	1055
Source:
Salisbury and Winchester Journal - Saturday 19 February 1870, page 4.

I must do this again. It's so much fun.




* "A Century of British Brewers Plus" by Norman Barber, 205, page 46.
** "A History of Beer and Brewing" by Ian Hornsey, 2003, pages 424 and 426.
*** "A Century of British Brewers Plus" by Norman Barber, 205, page 46.

Random brewery price list - Simonds of Winchester

Ah, the stuff I find when looking for something else. Like this. A random brewery price list from the 1870's.

It's for an obscure brewery that closed long ago. pretty irrelevant, really, to the 21st century. Which is exactly why I find it so fascinating. I'm a contrary bastard.

First some background about the brewery. founded in 1812, traded as James Simonds 1847 - 1857, Simonds & Co. 1858 - 1893 and finally Winchester Brewery Co. Ltd. until it was bought by Marston in 1923. It had 108 pubs at the time of the takeover. It only brewed for another four years, but was used for bottling until 1969*.

Obscure enough for you?

Salisbury and Winchester Journal - Saturday 19 February 1870, page 4.

What's odd about that range of beers? Almost half of them are Porter or Stout. Which is a big proportion for a country brewery at that date. Also there's a high proportion of expensive beers - four costing 54 shillings a barrel.

It's an odd selection. There are only two X Ales when I'd have xpected at least three. This is also fairly early for a provincial brewery to be making IPA, unless it specialised in Pale Ales, which Simonds obviously didn't. I've no idea what M.B. XXX is. Mild Beer XXX, perhaps?

This is my guess of the gravities, based on Whitbread. The gravities may have been a little lower at Simonds:

Simonds of Winchester beers in 1870
	price per barrel	guess OG
Old Stock Ale	54	1080
X East India Pale Ale	54	1065
M.B. XXX	54	1080
Mild Ale XXX	48	1078
Mild Ale XX	36	1058
Treble Stout	54	1085
Double Stout	48	1078
Single Stout	42	1068
Porter	36	1058
Source:
Salisbury and Winchester Journal - Saturday 19 February 1870, page 4.

That's it. I told you this was pretty random.



* "A Century of British Brewers Plus" by Norman Barber, 205, page 50.

War and Profit

Just because there was a war didn't stop landlords needing to earn money. Extra taxation on beer to help pay for the war had pushed up its price. Shortages of just about everything else fueled inflation, too. What effect did all this have on a publican's profits? In WW I there had been extravagant tales of publicans earning fortunes from rising prices. Probably greatly exaggerated. But what about WW II.

Luckily, I've some numbers to hand. Funny that.

THE EFFECT OF WAR ON RATE PER CENT. OF GROSS PROFITS.

The rate per cent, of gross profit earned in licensed houses has been materially affected by the changes in the retail prices of beers and spirits brought about by the two post-war Budgets. The rate per cent, of gross profit varies from house to house, depending as it does upon whether the tenant is tied or free, whether he is tied for wines and spirits as well as beers, what classes of beers he sells, what proportion his sales of beers are relative to his sales of wines, spirits and non-intoxicants, and in particular the proportion of sales in the saloon bar compared with those of the public bar and "off" sales.

We have been shown some illuminating figures relative to an average London "tied" house, which clearly show the effect of war conditions upon the rate per cent, of gross profit enjoyed in respect of the commodities sold in this typical house, as follows: -

	Pre-war rate per cent. of gross profit.	Present-day rate per cent. of gross profit.
Spirits ......	33.63%	34.75%
Wines ......	44.50%	42.88%
Beer and ales	27%	21.75%
Bottled beer	30.13%	26%
Tobacco......	17.75%	14.88%
Minerals......	35.75%	31.50%

In the case of this average house the result has been that, whereas the stock sheets showed a gross profit of 28.375 per cent, prior to the war, to-day the figure has dropped to 86 per cent., a decline of 3.375 per cent. It should be added that in the case of this house it would he necessary for the total takings to have increased by 16 per cent, in order that the licensee should obtain the same gross profit as before the war. Even so, his financial position would not be so good, since the cost of wages, keep of staff, gas, electricity, glass, cleaning materials, etc., etc., coal and many other items of expenditure have risen considerably, apart from statutory charges such as rates, water rate, property tax, etc. It should be added that the house to which the above figures relate is tied for all malt liquors but free for wines and spirits.
"The Brewers' Journal 1940" page 555. (Published July 17th, 1940.)

As you can see, the percentage profit had declined a little, with the exception of spirits. A few percent decline, but still a decline. The markup on draught beer seems pretty low. Interesting that the lowest percentage profit was on fags and the highest on wine.

It would be nice to see more detail on the profit of different types of beer. Hang on a minute. There's that Barclay Perkins price list. It lists both wholesale and retail prices. It's from a little later in the war, 1942, but it's still illuminating.

One thing to bear in mind. The price list gives public bar prices. In the saloon bar, the retail prices would be 1d a pint or so higher. So the level of profit would be higher than shown.

Let's begin with the draught beer:

	wholesale price	retail price	% profit
Pale Ale	120	144	20.00%
Farmer Ale	120	144	20.00%
IPA	66	84	27.27%
Doctor Brown Ale	130	156	20.00%
No.1 Southwarke Ale	108	144	33.33%
Stout	130	156	20.00%
Best Stout	81	102	25.93%
Milk Stout	151	180	19.21%
Russian Stout	132	168	27.27%

Now there's a surprise. The biggest percentage profit is on what was probably the largest seller in most pubs: X Ale. That sort of makes sense, as it was barely stronger than A, yet cost 1d more a pint.

Now if we add 1d a pint to get saloon bar prices, something fascinating happens:

	retail price per pint	wholesale price per barrel	wholesale price per pint	% profit
A	10	186	7.75	22.50%
X	11	204	8.50	22.73%
XX	12	228	9.50	20.83%
XLK	13	248	10.33	20.51%
KK	16	308	12.83	19.79%
KKKK		416	17.33
BS	16	308	12.83	19.79%

For a start, the percentage mark now looks very much like the one given by the Brewers' Journal: a little over 20%. And the profit margin on the cheaper beers jumps ahead of that on the stronger beers.


Here are the bottled beers:

	wholesale price	retail price	% profit
Pale Ale	120	144	20.00%
Farmer Ale	120	144	20.00%
IPA	66	84	27.27%
Doctor Brown Ale	130	156	20.00%
No.1 Southwarke Ale	108	144	33.33%
Stout	130	156	20.00%
Best Stout	81	102	25.93%
Milk Stout	151	180	19.21%
Russian Stout	132	168	27.27%

Note that there's much more variation, from 19.21% to 33.33%. Again, it's lower than in the Brewers' Journal. Factor in the extra price in the saloon bar, and it's very similar.

A gross profit of 20 to 25% on beer. A bit rubbish, really. I'm sure it's much higher now.

The death of Porter (part 92)

You may have noticed that I use a multipronged fork to devour and absorb the past. Brewing manuals, price lists, brewing logs and newspaper articles all play their part. Today I'm going to use one of these sources, brewery price lists, to analyse Porter's demise.

I've pretty well destroyed the Porter dying out due to WW I malting restrictions theory. And, as we've seen, Whitbread were still brewing their Porter and the start of WW II. Fuller's was still around in the 1950's. Porter didn't disappear overnight. It was a long slow process. What's happened with Mild over the last 30 years seems like a good parallel.

A quick overview of Mild's decline seems a good place to start. In 1960 Mild was brewed everywhere in the UK and available in every pub. By the time I started drinking in 1973 Lager only just outsold Mild (14.6% of sales to 14.2%), yet there were already parts of the country where Mild had almost disappeared. London, Sheffield, Scotland. The areas where it retained a degree of popularity - South Wales, West Midlands, parts of Yorkshire and the North West - today form the style's last strongholds. Many southern breweries no longer regularly brew Mild. Scottish 60/- is close to extinction.

The uneven geographically spread of decline can be seen quite clearly with Porter, too. The brewing records I've seen, being mostly from London, give a distorted image. London was Porter's last toehold. It was still a standard part of a London brewery's range in the 1920's. Most still made one in the 1930's. But what about elsewhwere? That's where brewery price lists come in.

Price lists provide an invaluable record of the range of beers being brewed bty a specific brewery at a specific time. See when Porter disappears from the price lists and you can plot its decline. In the 1850's and 1860's just about every brewery produced a Porter. When did they start to drop it?

The answer is: surprisingly early. Already in the 1870's there were breweries that brewed Stout, but no Porter. As the 19th century progresses a greater proportion produce no Porter.

The table below gives an idea of how brewers turned their backs on Porter. I won't claim that it's wonderfully scientific, as it's based on a random sample of price lists (the ones I happen to have found). But it does give an impression of the rate and extent of Porter's decline.


It looks as if the 1890's was the decade when Porter hit serious trouble. Half the breweries in my sample didn't brew one. And those still with a Porter were increasingly concentrated in the South. The maps below show clearly the uneven distribution of Porter brewing breweries.


View Porter in a larger map


Romford, Bristol, Stratford-on-Avon, Stockport, Watford, Leamington, Northampton, Putney, Chiswick, Hitchin Herts, Leamington, Sheffield, Epping, Mansfield, London, Hastings.


View No Porter in a larger map

Newark, Manchester, Nottingham, Chippenham, Cambridge, Cambridge, Hull, Colchester, Swansea, Swansea, Newark, Hull, Wickwar Gloucs, Stafford, Brigg, Sheffield, Tiverton

Conditioning in the cask

It seems that breweries trying to skip proper conditioning in of their beer in the pub is nothing new.

This 1894 advert from Overton & Gibbon makes clear that they weren't taking shortcuts:

"Nothing artificial is used in these Ales in the shape of Finings (in order to produce early brilliancy), consequently the Ales will require about three days to become spontaneously bright. THESE ALES WILL NEVER ACIDIFY."

There really isn't anything new under the sun, is there? It sounds depressingly similar to the modern practice of racking beer pretty much bright into casks so it can be sold almost as soon as it hits the cellar floor.