Shut up about Barclay Perkins - London Mild quality in the 1920's - Barclay Perkins

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While I'm on the topic of Mild quality in the 1920's, I may as well look at other London breweries, too.

I did this with some other London beers - mostly Porters and Stouts - a few years ago. I worked out a method of scoring the beers, based on the description of the flavour in the Whitbread Gravity Book. It goes like this, from -3 to +3:

+3 v good
+2 v fine, v fair, good
+1 fine, fair
0 moderate, only fair
-1 poor
-2 v poor, going off, thin
-3 nasty, sour, foul, gone off, mouldy

This brilliant. I'll be able to spin loads of posts out it. And then produce a league table for London Milds in the 1920's. Why didn't I think of this before?*

I think I may have to rethink my plans to hang around in Barclay Perkins pubs when I move back to the 1920's.

Barclay Perkins Mild Ale quality 1922 - 1925
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Appearance	Flavour	Score
1922	X	1009	1039.5	4.03	78.48%	grey	sour	-3
1922	X	1009	1038.9	3.83	75.84%	hazy	only fair	0
1922	X	1010	1040	3.89	75.00%	cloudy	fair	1
1922	X	1010	1039	3.76	74.36%	fairly bright	gone off	-3
1923	X	1013	1044.7	4.08	70.47%	not quite bright	good	2
1923	X	1012	1041	3.76	70.73%	hazy	thin	-2
1923	X	1010	1041	3.97	74.63%	not bright	fair	1
1923	X	1011	1041.6	4.02	74.52%	hazy	v fair	2
1923	X	1011	1041.8	4.02	74.16%	thick	poor	-1
1923	X	1011	1041.1	3.96	74.21%	v hazy	poor mouldy	-3
1924	X		1043.8			just bright	fair	1
1924	X	1012	1044.6	4.27	73.77%	milky	thin	-2
1924	X	1010	1043.8	4.37	76.71%	cloudy	only fair	0
1925	X	1011	1044	4.23	74.09%	not bright	Poor & thin	-2
	Average							-0.64
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

That's pretty piss-poor, isn't it? Not a single one totally bright. Only 4 out of 14 with a positive score for the flavour and three that sound undrinkable. None of the beers is without a fault.

I wonder if they fined their beers. I suppose nowadays the landlord would just have to scribble "unfined" on the pump clip and suddenly those faults would all disappear.





* I did, but got distracted by something else.



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