Visit the Shut up about Barclay Perkins site

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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