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Shut up about Barclay Perkins - The Price of Lager
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Nailing together information from different sources is great fun. And can generate fascinating new data. That's why I enjoy doing it so much.
This all started when I stumbled across a wine merchant's price list from 1932. This one:
Cheltenham Chronicle - Saturday 18 June 1932, page 1.
It's like a roll call of Britain's most famous beers of the time. And what did it remind me of? The Whitbread Gravity Book. Because that's full of famous beers from the 1930's. A quick check of my mega gravity spreadsheet confirmed what I suspected: I'd got the gravity of most of the beers.
This where it gets really exciting: working out the relative cost of each. That is, the price per gravity point per dozen pints. The results are intriguing and not quite what I had expected in every case.
Brewery |
Place |
year |
beer |
OG |
|
size |
|
price per gravity point (pence) |
Truman |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Eagle Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Truman |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Eagle Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Truman |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Eagle Ale |
|
|
quart |
|
|
Flower's |
Stratford |
1932 |
Light Bitter Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Flower's |
Stratford |
1932 |
Light Bitter Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Mitchell & Butler |
Birmingham |
1932 |
All Bright Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
George |
Bristol |
1932 |
Home Brewed Ale |
|
|
quart |
|
|
Worthington |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Worthington |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Bass |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Bass |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
William Younger |
Edinburgh |
1932 |
Scotch Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Wrexham |
Wrexham |
1932 |
Welsh Lager Beer |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Tennent |
Glasgow |
1932 |
Lager Beer |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Tennent |
Glasgow |
1932 |
Lager Beer |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Barclay Perkins |
London |
1932 |
Lager Beer |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Alloa Brewery |
Alloa |
1932 |
Graham's Golden Lager Beer |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
1932 |
London Stout |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
1932 |
London Stout |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Raggett |
London |
1932 |
Nourishing Stout |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Raggett |
London |
1932 |
Nourishing Stout |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Simmond |
Reading |
1932 |
Milk Stout |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Simmond |
Reading |
1932 |
Milk Stout |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Guinness |
Dublin |
1932 |
Extra Stout |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Guinness |
Dublin |
1932 |
Extra Stout |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Sources: |
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001 |
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/098 and LMA/4453/D/01/099 |
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/641 |
Cheltenham Chronicle - Saturday 18 June 1932, page 1. |
Here, for clarity's sake, are just the half pints, sorted in descending order of price:
Brewery |
Place |
year |
beer |
OG |
|
size |
|
price per gravity point (pence) |
Tennent |
Glasgow |
1932 |
Lager Beer |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Alloa Brewery |
Alloa |
1932 |
Graham's Golden Lager Beer |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
William Younger |
Edinburgh |
1932 |
Scotch Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
1932 |
London Stout |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Simmond |
Reading |
1932 |
Milk Stout |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Barclay Perkins |
London |
1932 |
Lager Beer |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Bass |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Worthington |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Raggett |
London |
1932 |
Nourishing Stout |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Truman |
Burton |
1932 |
Pale Eagle Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Guinness |
Dublin |
1932 |
Extra Stout |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
1932 |
Pale Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Flower's |
Stratford |
1932 |
Light Bitter Ale |
|
|
half pint |
|
|
Sources: |
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001 |
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/098 and LMA/4453/D/01/099 |
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/641 |
Cheltenham Chronicle - Saturday 18 June 1932, page 1. |
I wasn't surprised that the two most expensive beers were Lagers. They were marketing as premium beers and priced accordingly. What interested me more was that the top three were all Scottish, with Younger's No. 3 almost as expensive as the Lagers. I guess that must have been marketed as a premium beer, too. Come to think of it, I have come across dozens of adverts for it. (In case you're wondering how I know that the beer in the price list is No. 3, I've another price list where explicitly says Younger's No. 3 and the price is exactly the same. Plus Younger only marketed two beers as Scotch Ale: No. 1 and No. 3. The price is too cheap for it to possibly be No. 1.)
I hadn't expected Stouts to come in at numbers four and five. Especially not those types of Stout. Which brings me to the biggest shock: how relatively cheap Guinness was. Remarkably good value, in fact. I've no explanation. I would have expected it to be dearer than Whitbread's London Stout.
The Burton Pale Ales are nicely grouped together in the middle. I'm not surprised that Bass and Worthington had almost identical gravities and were the same price. I would have expected the weaker Truman Pale Ale to be cheaper.
Getting back to the price of Lager (it is the title, after all), let's see exactly how much more expensive it was in percentage terms. I make Tennent's and Graham's Lagers 27% more expensive than Bass Pale Ale and a whopping 43% more expensive than Whitnbread Pale Ale. If we look at cheaper beers, the difference is even bigger - almost double the price of Whitbread's draught X Ale.
Draught Beers |
Brewery |
Place |
year |
beer |
OG |
|
size |
|
price per gravity point (pence) |
Guinness |
Dublin |
|
Extra Stout |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
|
Pale Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Truman |
Burton |
|
Pale Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Flower |
Stratford |
|
Pale Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
|
Stout |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Worthington |
Burton |
|
Pale Ale |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Whitbread |
London |
|
X |
|
|
pint |
|
|
Sources: |
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001 |
The moral of all this? Drink Mild not Lager!
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