Barclay Perkins XLK material costs in WW II

I was intrigued by a question asked in response to an earlier post. Why did the price of beer increase so much during WW I. My immediate response was - tax. I decided to investigate a bit more, just to be sure.

Let’s take a look at one particular beer, Barclay Perkins XLK, to see what was behind those price increase. Rather handily, Barclay’s brewing records list the price of the ingredients.

I’d best tell you the units I’m using in the tables first. The grains are in quarters – 336 lbs. The sugars and hops in hundredweights – 112 lbs.

In 1939, the raw materials accounted for much less of the cost than tax.

Tax, at a rate of 80 shillings per standard barrel , came to 2.77d per pint of XLK. The ingredients were less than half that, at just 1.27d. Most of that coming from the fermentables. It’s fascinating to see just how insignificant the cost of the hops was.

29th May 1939 Barclay Perkins XLK material costs (217 barrels)
ingredient	quantity	price (shillings)	cost	cost per pint (d)	% of total
Californian pale malt	7.98	47	375.06
PA malt Gripper	9.24	55	508.20
PA malt HA & DT	9.24	59	545.16
flaked maize	4.2	36	151.20
No. 3 invert sugar	9.66	38.5	371.91
total malt/adjunct			1951.53	1.13	16.16%
MK Fuggles 1938	0.90	196	73.70
Kent W 1938	0.84	213	74.11
MK Goldings 1937	0.96	236	94.26
total hops			242.08	0.15	2.09%
total ingredients				1.28	18.25%
tax				2.77	39.57%
retail price				7.00
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/623.

If you’re wondering why the quantities look so weird, it’s because this example was parti-gyled. I’ve adjusted the amounts to reflect XLK’s share of the materials.

By 1942, in the middle of the war, things had changed quite a bit. There’s been a big increase in the price of malt – four or five times its pre-war level.

8th May 1942 Barclay Perkins XLK material costs (225 barrels)
ingredient	quantity	price (shillings)	cost	cost per pint (d)	% of total
crystal malt	1.25	230	287.5
PA malt Taylor	13	178	2314
PA malt Dereham	12.75	195	2486.25
flaked barley	3	205	615
sugar	3	100	300
total malt/adjunct			6002.75	3.34	27.85%
MK Fuggles 1941	0.55	334	184.89
Worcester Fuggles 1941	0.55	310	171.61
MK Fuggles 1940	0.55	278	153.89
total hops			510.39	0.29	2.42%
total ingredients				3.63	30.26%
tax				4.41	36.77%
retail price				12.00
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/624.

That’s left the ingredients costing almost the same as the tax, and three times the 1939 amount. Despite fewer of them being needed, due to a fall in OG from 1045.7º to 1035.3º.  The proportion of the retail price made up by the tax has even fallen a little. Even though the tax rate had more than doubled, up to 165 shillings a standard barrel.

On a side note, it’s strange to see flaked barley costing more than PA malt. Why would you use unmalted barley when malt was cheaper? Because the government told you to.

Just after war’s end, the situation had altered once more.

29th Aug 1946 Barclay Perkins XLK material costs (282 barrels)
ingredient	quantity	price (shillings)	cost	cost per pint (d)	% of total
crystal malt	3	131	393
PA malt Taylor	14	153	2142
PA malt Dereham	14	142	1988
flaked barley	3	205	615
No. 3 invert sugar	5	99	495
total malt/adjunct			5633.00	2.51	19.32%
MK Colgates 1945	0.71	452	322.86
Worcester Fuggles 1945	0.72	451	326.17
Worcester Goldings 1945	0.72	491	355.10
EK Tolhursts 1945	0.72	476	344.25
total hops			1004.13	0.45	3.48%
total ingredients				2.96	22.79%
tax				6.86	52.75%
retail price				13.00
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/627.

I’m sure brewers were happy to see the price of malt fall a bit, though there were still triple that of 1939. Hops, on the other hand, were around 50% more expensive than in 1942. As they were a relatively small part of the total, it still meant the cost of the ingredients was down from 3.63d to 2.96d. A reduction in OG to 1031.06º also helped to reduce this a little.

Obviously, the tax had increased and was, in 1946, 286 shillings 5.5d per standard barrel.  Making it just over 50% of the retail price at just shy of 7d per pint. Which, coincidentally, had been the retail price in 1939.

Pool beer denial

No, this isn't about someone being refused a beer at a swimming pool. Rather about a rumour that brewers were going to pool beer. 

"POOL BEER DENIAL
Brewers have not Considered Possibility
The Brewers' Society there is no truth in the statement, which has appeared in certain newspapers, that brewers have considered the possibility of pooling beer or brewing only one class of mild ale and one of bitter. The Society has no knowledge of any canvass having been taken in licensed houses on any proposal to sell pool beer. 

Further, the suggestion that brewers' stocks of barley are to be rationed is without foundation. 

The only proposal with regard to barley which has been considered is that if it becomes necessary to draw on brewers' shocks for seed purposes, arrangements may be wade with that object In view at a later stage. but so far the departments concerned are satisfied that the seed position is sound. 

It is true that brewers and maltsters hold considerable stocks of British barley. They bought heavily of the season's crop in response to a request of the authorities at an early stage, but their stocks of barley generally are no bigger than they usually carry at this time of the year, having regard to the fact that practically no Californian barley, which most brewers like to mix with home-grown barley, is available."
Coatbridge Express - Wednesday 07 February 1940, page 4. 

While the Brewers' Society was correct, at the time, about beer pooling it did sort of take place. Through the mechanism of beer zoning, whereby distant tied houses were served by another brewer. The intention being to save  on transportation at a time when fuel was in short supply.

And while brewers may not have set out to brew just a single Mild and a single Bitter, something of the kind did take place. Brewers trimmed down their ranges considerably, dropping beers like 8d Bitters because draught beers over 1050º no longer made economic sense. 

While the number of Milds brewed was reduced as falling gravities concertinaed together strengths. And when a beer hit 1027º, there was nowhere for it to go as that was the weakest economic strength. As a beer with a lower gravity would still be taxed at the 1027º rate.

Fullers is a good example. Down from 8 beers in 1939, to just 4 in 1946.One in each style.

Fullers beers in 1939
Date	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
30th Oct	X	Mild	1032.7	1007.5	3.33	77.12%	6.96	0.95
6th Nov	XX	Mild	1042.7	1010.5	4.25	75.32%	6.93	1.22
24th Oct	AK	Pale Ale	1033.4	1006.6	3.53	80.07%	9.19	1.25
17th Oct	XK	Pale Ale	1039.4	1010.0	3.89	74.67%	9.21	1.45
24th Oct	PA	Pale Ale	1051.1	1013.0	5.04	74.53%	9.19	1.91
9th Nov	P	Porter	1038.5	1013.0	3.37	66.19%	7.62	1.35
18th Oct	BO	Strong Ale	1055.5	1015.2	5.32	72.54%	7.01	1.63
8th Nov	OBE	Strong Ale	1069.6	1013.3	7.45	80.90%	7.29	2.00
Source:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery

Fullers beers in 1946
Date	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
3rd Oct	X	Mild	1029.6	1008.3	2.81	71.88%	4.83	0.59
2nd Oct	PA	Pale Ale	1029.5	1008.3	2.81	71.86%	6.94	0.83
22nd Oct	P	Porter	1029.3	1010.5	2.48	64.08%	5.95	0.81
25th Nov	BO	Strong Ale	1038.8	1010.8	3.70	72.14%	4.77	0.77
Source:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery

 

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1961 Clarke 1/2 MB

Clarke is a bonus brewery. I came across a brewing book of theirs totally by chance. Because it’s mixed in with Boddington’s ones.

A mis-cataloguing, I’m sure. There are other Clarke’s brewing records archived in Stockport, where the brewery was based. They were bought and closed by Boddington, presumably to get hold of their pubs. That’s just how things worked, if you wanted to expand your business.

According to the ever handy “Century of British Brewers plus plus” (by Norman Barber 2013, page 107) Richard Clarke & Co. Ltd. was founded in 1865 and bought by Boddington in 1963.

The log I found looks like the last. A bit sad that.

MB must mean Mild Beer. Dark, by the look of the recipe. Quite possibly darkened more with primings. A lot of that went on.

The grist has the bizarrely-fashionable and probably pointless enzymic malt, along with base malt, flaked maize and sugar. So pretty standard stuff. The log just says “invert”. No.3 is my guess.

Slightly unusually for a Mild, MB is dry hopped. Not a huge amount, but about the as much as a Bitter of the same strength. Talking of hops, they were Kent (1960 harvest), Sussex (1960), Worcester (1960) plus Worcester (1960) dry hops I’ve interpreted the Kent and Sussex hops as Fuggles, the Worcester hops as Goldings.

1/2 is the price, in case you're wondering. 1 shilling 2 pence for a pint in the public bar.

1961 Clarke 1/2 MB
pale malt	5.75 lb	79.31%
enzymic malt	0.125 lb	1.72%
flaked maize	0.25 lb	3.45%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.125 lb	1.72%
glucose	0.25 lb	3.45%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.50 lb	6.90%
malt extract	0.25 lb	3.45%
Fuggles 90 min	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.125 oz
OG	1033
FG	1012.5
ABV	2.71
Apparent attenuation	62.12%
IBU	13.4
SRM	14
Mash at	154º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1318 London ale III (Boddingtons)

This recipe appears in my book about UK beer after WW II. You can buy it here:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/austerity/23181344

 

 

Retail prices follow-up

In reaction to my last post, a reader enquired about the reason for increases in the price of beer. The simple answer is: tax.

A ridiculous percentage of the retail price of beer was the tax. As I will demonstrate in my usual way - with a table. Having lots and lots of numbers to hand, I can magic up how much of the money you handed over the bar was going straight into the chancellor's pocket.

A note about how I've come up with the figures. To calculate the average tax per pint, I've simply divided the total tax paid by the number of bulk barrels brewed that year. For the average price of a pint, I've used the price of Barclay Perkins Ordinary Bitter, XLK, which was about average gravity. Not totally precise, but close enough.

A standard barrel, in case you're wondering was a nominal unit for calculating tax, that is 36 Imperial gallons with an OG of 1055º. Bulk barrels are the actual volume of beer produced.

From an already high 30% of the retail price at the start of the war, by its end it was pushing double that. Truly eye-watering.

What effect did the high rate of tax have on the industry? It certainly couldn't have  done much for competition. Unless you were operating on a vast scale, any small economies in production or raw materials were going to be an insignificant part of the retail price.

It also incentivised getting beer tax-free. Either by reusing ullage (returned beer) or any grotty bits of beer left at the bottom of fermenters, etc. Brewers were allowed a 6% loss on the volume put into fermenting vessels. If you could cut your wastage to just 2%, you got 4% of your beer free of tax. This was the major advantage large brewers had over their smaller competitors.

UK tax and price per pint 1939 - 1949
Year	Total Tax £	Bulk Barrels	Tax/Std. Brl	Av. OG	price pint	tax pint	Tax (% retail price)
1939	62,370,034	24,674,992	80s	1040.93	7d	2.11d	30.09%
1940	75,157,022	25,366,782	80s / 104s	1040.62	8d	2.47d	30.86%
1941	133,450,205	26,203,803	135s / 165s	1038.51	10d	4.24d	42.44%
1942	157,254,430	29,860,798	165s /240s 7.5d	1035.53	12d	4.39d	36.57%
1943	209,584,343	29,296,672	240s 7.5d / 281s 10.5d	1034.34	13d	5.96d	45.86%
1944	263,170,703	30,478,289	281s 10.5d / 286s 5.5d	1034.63	13d	7.20d	55.35%
1945	278,876,870	31,332,852	286s 5.5d	1034.54	13d	7.42d	57.05%
1946	295,305,369	32,650,200	286s 5.5d	1034.72	13d	7.54d	57.98%
1947	250,350,829	29,261,398	286s 5.5d	1032.59	13d	7.13d	54.84%
1948	264,112,043	30,408,634	325s 5d	1032.66	15d	7.24d	48.25%
1949	294,678,035	26,990,144	364s 4.5d / 343s 4.5d	1033.43	16d	9.10d	56.86%
Sources:
1955 Brewers' Almanack, pages 50 & 80.
1971 Brewers' Almanack, pages 45 & 75.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

Boddington Bitter hops 1920 - 1938

The final post in this series on interwar Boddington Bitter. What fun it's been.

There's one consistent feature in Boddington's interwar hopping - lots of different hops in every beer. Up to six coppwer hops and three dry hops. In terms of origin, most are either English or American. But also some German (Hannover) Belgian (Alost), Czechoslovakian (Saaz) and Yugoslavian (Styrian). Quite a mixture, though with a higher percentage of locally-grown hops thatn you might have seen before WW I.

As well as several different types of hops, each beer also had ones from several different harvests. The oldest in the table were five seasons old, while most are no more than two seasons old. This sost of mix and matching I'm sure was at least partly driven by a desire to avoid and sudden changes in flavour when one hop was substituted.

Boddington Bitter hops 1920 - 1938
Year	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3	hop 4	hop 5	hop 6	hop 7	hop 8	hop 9
1920	English 1919	Oregon 1916	Oregon 1917	English 1919 dry hops	Oregon 1917 dry hops	Alost 1919 dry hops
1921	Saaz 1918	English 1919	English 1920	Alost 1920	Pacific 1920	Pacific 1920 dry hops	English 1920 dry hops
1922	Pacifics 1920	Pacifics 1921	English 1920	English 1921	English 1921	English 1922	Pacifics 1921 dry hops	English 1921 dry hops	English 1922 dry hops
1923	Pacific 1921	English 1922	Hannover 1923	Pacific 1921 dry hops	English 1921 dry hops	Hannover 1923 dry hops
1924	Americans 1921	Pacifics 1922 CS	English 1922	English 1923	English 1924	Pacifics 1922 dry hops	English 1923 dry hops	English 1924 dry hops
1925	Pacifics 1923 CS	English 1923	English 1923	English 1923	English 1924	Pacifics 1923 dry hops	English 1924 dry hops
1926	Pacifics 1922	English 1924	English 1924	English 1925	English 1925	Pacifics 1923 dry hops	English 1925 dry hops
1927	Californian 1922	Californian 1926	English 1925	English 1925	English 1925	English 1926	Californian 1926 dry hops	English 1925 dry hops	English 1926 dry hops
1928	Pacifics 1927	English 1925	English 1926	English 1927	English 1927	Pacifics 1927 dry hops	English 1927 dry hops
1929	Californian 1927	English 1927	English 1927	English 1928	Californian 1927 dry hops	English 1928 CS dry hops
1930	Sonoma 1928	Oregon 1928	English 1927	English 1927	English 1928	English 1928 CS	Oregon 1927 dry hops	English 1928 CS dry hops
1932	Oregon 1930	English 1930	English 1930	English 1930	English 1930 CS	Oregon 1930 dry hops	English 1930 CS dry hops
1933	Oregon 1931	English 1931	English 1931	English 1931	English 1931 CS	English 1932	English 1932 dry hops
1934	Oregon 1930 CS	English 1929	English 1930	English 1932	English 1933	Styrian 1933 dry hops	English 1933 CS dry hops
1935	Oregon 1933 CS	Styrian 1933 CS	English 1933	English 1934	English 1934	Styrian 1934 CS dry hops	English 1934 CS dry hops
1936	Oregon 1935 CS	Styrian 1933 CS	English 1934 CS	English 1935	English 1935 CS	Styrian 1934 CS dry hops	English 1935 CS dry hops	English 1935 dry hops
1937	Oregon 1936	Styrian 1936	English 1935 CS	English 1935 CS	English 1936 CS	English 1936 CS	Styrian 1936 dry hops	English 1936 CS dry hops
1938	Oregon 1937 CS	Styrian 1937 CS	English 1936 CS	English 1936 CS	English 1937 CS	English 1937 CS	Styrian 1937 CS dry hops	English 1937 CS dry hops	English 1937 CS dry hops
Sources:
Boddington brewing records held at Manchester Central Library, document numbers M693/405/127 and M693/405/128.