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12-01-2014, 08:32
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Today is a real treataroonie. As long as you're a table fan. And I don't mean a rotating cooling device mounted on a desk. Probably didn't need to tell you that.

Watney. A name pretty much erased from history. I can remember when that process started. Back in the early 1980's I believe it was when Watney began removing their name from the outside of their tied houses. If you saw a pub without a brewery logo and some bollocks like "Traditional Ales" very prominent on the signage you could be sure it was an ashamed Watney's pub, trying to pretend it was something else.

The 1898 merger with Combe and Reid left Watneys as one of the largest brewers in the country, producing over 1 million barrels annually. They also had a considerable tied estate, especially in London. This was obvious before they started removing their name from their pubs.

Right let's crack on with the beer. Or beers, as there are a couple of different ones in the main table. The majority are KK or draught Burton. As I've told you 60 gazillion times, Burton was one of the standard draught beers in London pubs until the 1960's. Along with Mild, Bitter, Stout and in the 1920's, Porter. Also cropping up a couple of times is bottles Stingo, a type of strong beer mostly associated with Yorkshire. Feel free to think of it as either an Old Ale or a Barley Wine. It's your choice. Then at the end there's Export Gold, which I guess you could call a pale Barley Wine. If you were obsessed with labelling everything to within an inch of its life.

Starting with the Burton, you can that's mostly a tale of falling gravity. 1922 is the year when things got back to normal after WW I. Price controls were abolished the year before. The impact of a reduction in duty from 100s. per standard barrel to 80s. per standard barrel can be seen with the reduction in price from 9d. to 8d. per pint. At the same time the gravity was increased a little.

How does Watney's KK compare to other London Burton's? Let's take a closer look. The Whitbread Gravity book has lots of analyses for 1922, especially for London beers. This is no coincidence. With the end of price control, Whitbread would want to know what their competitors were up to.



London Strong Ales in 1922


Year
Brewer
Beer
Price
size
package
FG
OG
ABV
App. Atten-uation


1922
Barclay Perkins
KK
9
pint
draught
1011.7
1056.2
5.80
79.18%


1922
Beasley
KK
9
pint
draught
1014.4
1056.6
5.49
74.56%


1922
Cannon Brewery
KK
9
pint
draught
1015.4
1054.4
5.06
71.69%


1922
Charrington
KK
9
pint
draught
1015.6
1055.9
5.23
72.09%


1922
City of London
KK
9
pint
draught
1008.5
1056.7
6.30
85.01%


1922
Courage
KK
9
pint
draught
1013.2
1053.7
5.27
75.42%


1922
Hoare
KK
9
pint
draught
1015.5
1056.5
5.33
72.57%


1922
Huggins
KK
9
pint
draught
1012.6
1056.1
5.67
77.54%


1922
Lion Brewery
KK
9
pint
draught
1010.7
1056.7
6.00
81.13%


1922
Mann
KK
9
pint
draught
1013
1057
5.73
77.19%


1922
Meux
KK
9
pint
draught
1007.4
1058.4
6.68
87.33%


1922
Truman
KK
9
pint
draught
1013.8
1052.8
5.07
73.86%


1922
Wenlock
KK
9
pint
draught
1010
1054
5.74
81.48%


1922
Whitbread
KK
9
pint
draught
1016.3
1054
4.89
69.81%



Average

9


1012.7
1055.6
5.59
77.06%


1922
Watney
KK
9d
pint
draught
1012.5
1058.5
6.00
78.63%


Source:


Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.



As you can see, all of the beers were pretty similar. Note, too, how many decent-sized breweries there still were in London. And see how they fit in with the last set of price controls:

[TABLE="width: 476"]

Price control 1917-1921



Oct 1917
Apr 1918
Feb 1919
Jul 1919
Apr 1920


2d





[TR]
4d
[TD="class: xl66, width: 82"]