Shut up about Barclay Perkins - Tetley Milds in 1878 (part two)

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No, I hadn't forgotten about finishing this off. Just got a bit distracted. The last 10 days I've been doing something rather important. But more of that at a later date.

It's time to look at the grists of Tetley's Milds in 1878 and those of similar London beers. Not that its going to be very exciting. Grists were, in general, pretty dull before 1880 for everything except Porter and Stout. Just loads of pale malt and the occasional dash of sugar.

Right, let's try and drag at least something out of the grists. Tetley's really are dead simple: pale malt with some colour added to a couple. I assume that's some sort of caramel colouring. Whitbread's go one step further down the simplicity path and are 100% pale malt.

Truman's and Barclay Perkins' are a bit more complex, including sugar as well. 19% in Truman's case, 14% in Barclay's. It doesn't specify which sugar, but my guess would be No. 2 invert. Both brewers also used white malt. As the name implies, it's a very pale sort of pale malt.

As there was so little to be gleaned from that particular field of grain, let's move on to the hops. Which are much more fun. What's the first thing you notice? Every single beer contains foreign hops. In the case of Tetley, it's always Bavarian hops, along with hops from various British districts. Mostly Kent, but also Worcester and Hampshire.

Bavarian hops also turn up in a couple of the London beers. Before I forget, Bavarian usually means Spalt. And in all but one Truman Mild, there are American hops in every London beer. Interesting, that. The other Truman Mild also contains Poperinge, that is Belgian, hops. Brewers liked those because they were dead cheap. Not the best quality, but cheap. As this table confirms:

UK hop imports 1864
source	lbs	Value.	Average price per cwt
Schleswig and Holstein	129,024	£5,472	£4 15 0
Hanover	79,184	£4,408	£6 4 8
Hamburg	981,456	£54,202	£6 3 8
Bremen	690,928	£33,141	£5 7 5
Holland	1,043,616	£60,155	£6 9 1
Belgium	1,611,568	£66,198	£4 12 0
France	1,132,208	£56,380	£5 11 3
United States	5,334,000	£267,364	£5 12 7
Other countries	47,600	£2,543	£5 19 8
totals	11,049,472	£549,863
Source:
Kentish Gazette - Tuesday 06 March 1866, page 3.

Isn't this your lucky day? Three tables. You can see that the average price was lowest for hops from Belgium. I'm not sure why hops from Holland were the most expensive. My guess is that they were German-grown hops being shipped through a Dutch port. Note that American hops were fairly expensive.

How does that compare with the price of British hops? Make that four tables. I just happen to have details of that, too. And for the same year.

Price of hops per cwt. at Borough Market May 1864
East Kents	£7 0 to	£9 0
Mid Kents	£6 10 to	£8 10
Weald of Kent	£6 9 to	£7 0
Sussex	£5 10 to	£6 6
1862's	£3 0 to	£4 0
Olds	£1 5 to	£2 0
Source:
Essex Standard - Wednesday 25 May 1864, page 4.

The best-quality East Kents cost almost double the price of Belgian hops.

Of course, as a relatively cheap beer, Mild used cheaper hops than Pale Ales. They tended to have a high proportion of Kent and Worcester hops.

What next? Why the 1880's, of course.

Tetley Mild grists in 1878
Date	Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	pale malt	colour	hops
7th Oct	1878	X	1044.3	1012.7	4.18	71.25%	100%		Bavarian and Kent hops
4th Oct	1878	X1	1048.5	1011.1	4.95	77.14%	100%		Bavarian and Kent hops
7th Oct	1878	X1	1048.5	1011.6	4.87	76.00%	100%		Bavarian and Kent hops
13th Dec	1878	X1	1048.5	1019.4	3.85	60.00%	100%		Hampshire, Kent, Worcester and Bavarian
13th Dec	1878	X1	1051.2	1021.1	3.99	58.92%	100%		Hampshire, Kent, Worcester and Bavarian
7th Oct	1878	X1	1052.1	1011.1	5.42	78.72%	100%		Bavarian and Kent hops
4th Oct	1878	X1	1052.6	1011.1	5.50	78.95%	100%		Bavarian and Kent hops
10th Dec	1878	X2	1056.8	1018.8	5.02	66.83%	100%	19 gallons	Bavarian and Kent hops
9th Jan	1878	X2	1060.4	1015.5	5.94	74.31%	100%		Bavarian and Kent hops
10th Dec	1878	X2	1060.9	1018.8	5.57	69.09%	100%	19 gallons	Bavarian and Kent hops
9th Oct	1878	X3	1069.3	1016.6	6.96	76.00%	100%		Kent, Worcester and Bavarian
7th Oct	1878	XX	1073.1	1023.3	6.60	68.18%	100%		Bavarian, Kent and Worcester hops
3rd Oct	1878	XX	1077.6	1017.7	7.92	77.14%	100%		Bavarian, Kent and Worcester hops
Source:
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service document number WYL756/25/ACC1903

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London Mild grists 1875 - 1880
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	pale malt	white malt	sugar	hops
16th Jul	1878	Whitbread	X	1060.7	1015.8	5.94	73.97%	100.00%			English and American hops
16th Jul	1878	Whitbread	XL	1069.3	1018.3	6.74	73.60%	100.00%			English and American hops
17th Jan	1876	Truman	X Ale	1062.0	1013.9	6.38	77.68%		81.09%	18.91%	English and Bavarian hops
31st Mar	1876	Truman	40/- Ale	1068.1	1012.5	7.37	81.71%		80.80%	19.20%	English, Poperinge and Californian hops
31st Aug	1880	Barclay Perkins	X	1060.7	1013.6	6.23	77.63%		85.99%	14.01%	Mid Kent, American and Bavarian hops
14th Feb	1880	Barclay Perkins	XX	1079.5	1024.1	7.33	69.69%	85.71%		14.29%	Mid Kent and American hops
Sources:
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number LMA/4453/D/01/044
Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number B/THB/C/156
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/579

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