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There was a comment on one of my recent posts about beer in the 1970s that they didn't think much watering went on, because many beers were already so weak. How true was this?

It's not easy to know what was going on in pub cellars. Especially when those activities were against the law. The only way of finding out if watering was occurring was for inspectors to take samples in pubs, work out what the original gravity had been and check with brewers if that tallied with the beer as sent out.

So I was dead happy when I bumped into a long article from the Manchester Evening News about prosecutions for diluting beer in the Manchester area. It reports on the prosecution of nine licensees for diluting beer. It seems this was just the tip of the iceberg and that the practice was widespread. With more prosecutions to follow.
Mr. William Hill, who conducted the case for prosecution, said after the hearings, “The Customs and Excise made their swoop after many complaints of poor quality beer from members of the public.“They found many houses with diluted beer, particularly in the Oldham area. Now the brewers are working in full co-operation with the Customs men.“Another 25 licensees are soon to appear in court on charges of possessing diluted beer from the Rochdale and Oldham area.”Mr. H. J. Dunhill, assistant collector for the Customs and Excise in Manchester, said: "A high proportion of the houses visited had diluted beer. We are continuing investigations in spurts in an parts of our area from Rochdale in the north to Altrincham in the south."
Manchester Evening News - Friday 23 October 1959, page 32.
The article does mention the real gravity of one of the beers and that was in the low 1030ºs. Already pretty damn weak. No wonder drinkers complained, if their already watery beer had been diluted even further. As we'll see later, in some cases, the quantity of water added was ludicrously high. We'll also see the ludricous excuses landlords came up with to explain away their nefarious activities.



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