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22-07-2014, 08:10
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"Thank you, Ronald," I can hear you saying. "Thank you for continuing your series on draught beer quality in 1920's London.

We've now got as far as Porter. If I'm honest, the Porter analyses are the most revealing about what was happening in the London pub trade. It gives some clues as to both the state Porter and why it was in decline. You could call it the Mild Effect.

What's that? Let me explain. In the 1970's, Mild sales were falling. Dramatically falling in some regions. This decline kicked off a vicious circle. A low volume of sales, meant that it was often too old and in bad condition. Which deterred drinkers from buying, leading to even lower sales and even poorer beer quality. Eventually it wasn't worth the landlord's while to sell it any more.

The comments on flavour in the Whitbread Gravity Book tend to confirm this. To put it bluntly: there was a lot of crap Porter about in the 1920's. Why do I think poor sales were to blame? Because I can see the decline that Porter went into after WW I quite clearly in Whitbread's production figures by type.

Here's what happened with their Porter 1910 - 1929:



Output of Whitbread Porter 1910 - 1929


year
barrels brewed
Total Port
Total Ale & Porter
% of Porter/Stout
% of total


1910
108,166
361,847
850,828
29.89%
12.71%


1911
101,934
368,953
907,173
27.63%
11.24%


1912
111,239
386,734
988,981
28.76%
11.25%


1913
127,838
378,629
901,807
33.76%
14.18%


1914
123,085
382,984
900,636
32.14%
13.67%


1915
65,216
314,169
762,438
20.76%
8.55%


1916
80,298
369,130
777,127
21.75%
10.33%


1917
8,493
286,163
578,502
2.97%
1.47%


1918
7,136
110,695
413,112
6.45%
1.73%


1919
21,602
117,284
565,624
18.42%
3.82%


1920
24,910
234,413

10.63%



1921
15,688
238,623
675,647
6.57%
2.32%


1922
16,562
192,717
576,118
8.59%
2.87%


1923
14,165
169,977
505,097
8.33%
2.80%


1924
15,948
178,192
551,616
8.95%
2.89%


1925
14,943
163,932
527,977
9.12%
2.83%


1926
13,511
168,513
512,528
8.02%
2.64%


1927
10,708
149,725
462,250
7.15%
2.32%


1928
10,105
142,153
488,357
7.11%
2.07%


1929
5,558
85,779
443,888
6.48%
1.25%


Sources:


Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/075, LMA/4453/D/01/076, LMA/4453/D/01/077, LMA/4453/D/01/078, LMA/4453/D/01/079, LMA/4453/D/01/080, LMA/4453/D/01/081 LMA/4453/D/01/082, LMA/4453/D/01/083, LMA/4453/D/01/084, LMA/4453/D/01/085, LMA/4453/D/01/086, LMA/4453/D/01/087, LMA/4453/D/01/088, LMA/4453/D/01/089, LMA/4453/D/01/090, LMA/4453/D/01/091, LMA/4453/D/01/092, LMA/4453/D/01/093, LMA/4453/D/01/094, LMA/4453/D/01/095,
LMA/4453/D/09/104, LMA/4453/D/09/105, LMA/4453/D/09/106, LMA/4453/D/09/107, LMA/4453/D/09/108, LMA/4453/D/09/109, LMA/4453/D/09/110, LMA/4453/D/09/111, LMA/4453/D/09/112, LMA/4453/D/09/113, LMA/4453/D/09/114, LMA/4453/D/09/115, LMA/4453/D/09/116, LMA/4453/D/09/117, LMA/4453/D/09/118, LMA/4453/D/09/119, LMA/4453/D/09/120, LMA/4453/D/09/121, LMA/4453/D/09/122 and LMA/4453/D/09/123.



Whitbread's Porter was in surprisingly good health leading up to WW I, with sales increasing. The war put a stop to that and output of it almost dried up after 1916. It bounced back a little in 1920, then went into a steady decline.

It also seems that many Porter drinkers switched to Stout. During the war, often the Porter and Stout on offer in a pub were the same beer, the only difference being the price. After the war, standard draught Stout was similar in gravity to pre-war Porter, in the range 1052 - 1056. That's exactly what I would have done, if I had been able to afford Porter.

On with Barclay Perkins' Porter. Remember that they had been one of the great Porter breweries, and had brewed Porter for over 150 years. It's fairly typical in terms of gravity and ABV. Let's take a look at the details:



Barclay Perkins Porter quality 1922 - 1923


Year
Beer
FG
OG
ABV
App. Atten-uation
Flavour
score
Price


1922
Porter
1013.2
1040.2
3.49
67.16%
Poor & thin
-2
6d


1922
Porter
1011.5
1035.5
3.10
67.61%
v fair
2
6d


1922
Porter
1010.5
1034.5
3.11
69.57%
v poor
-3
6d


1923
Porter
1012
1037.5
3.30
68.00%
fair
1
6d


1923
Porter
1010.8
1035.8
3.24
69.83%
fair
1
5d


1923
Porter
1012.5
1038
3.30
67.11%
going off
-2
6d


1923
Porter
1012.8
1039.8
3.49
67.84%
moderate
1
6d


1923
Porter
1009.8
1038.8
3.76
74.74%
v poor
-3
6d


Average
1011.6
1037.5
3.35
68.98%

-0.63



Source:


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



One thing I forgot to mention. For Porter and Stout there's no mention of clarity, presumably because of their dark colour. As you can see, the quality wasn't great. Only half get a positive score and only one of those scores higher than 1.

I can see why drinkers shunned Porter in the 1920's. It was often pretty crap. The lowered gravity wouldn't have helped. If only I had some similar information from before the war to confirm that its quality had declined. Oh well, you can't have everything.

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