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Let's move onto Whitbread’s wartime adjuncts.

Not much to report in the first couple of years, when the only adjunct used was flaked oats. And that in tiny quantities. Only in 1942 did Whitbread fall in line with most other brewers and employ adjuncts to replace malt.

Most unusual of the adjuncts is chocolate barley, something I’ve never seen before or since. I suppose it was the chocolate equivalent of roast barley.

Even when they were using adjuncts, the quantity was quite small, mostly under 10% of the total. The one exception being in 1943, the year of oats. When brewers had to substitute pats for 10% of their malt. Ironically enough, it was the only time London Oatmeal Stout contained a significant quantity of oats. Later in the war, malted oats were used in place of flaked oats.

Whitbread finished off the war employing flaked barley, just like everyone else.

Whitbread London Stout adjuncts 1939 - 1945
Date Year OG choc. Barley flaked barley barley meal flaked oat malted oats total
8th Aug 1939 1046.9 0.79% 0.79%
9th Sep 1940 1043.4 0.82% 0.82%
22nd Sep 1941 1042.0 0.79% 0.79%
4th Aug 1942 1038.7 6.47% 0.81% 0.81% 8.09%
31st May 1943 1039.6 12.44% 0.78% 13.21%
22nd Sep 1944 1039.8 2.48% 6.62% 0.41% 9.52%
19th Sep 1945 1039.2 6.18% 0.77% 6.96%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/126, LMA/4453/D/09/127, LMA/4453/D/09/128 and LMA/4453/D/09/129.


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