Tuesday 4 May 2010

Filthy stuff

Beer wasn't always great in the East End at the end of the 19th century.

At least not according to Inspector Carter:

"Charrington´s is about the best beer in the neighbourhood. But a great deal of filthy stuff is sold. The Brewers put in as managers men to whom they have advanced large sums. These men must make money. To make money they must adulterate. If they don´t, they lose and the brewers foreclose. Some firms are very hard. Perhaps the worst are Brewers at the corner of the Bow Road just before you come to the Stratford Bridge; their name is Smith & Garrett and the beer they sell is bad. Taylor Walker in Limehouse used to be large brewers and do a great Indian trade as well as own the houses in Limehouse. But the India trade has failed them and trade has left Limehouse so they are in a bad way now compared to former years."
Interview with Inspector Carter
Transcripts from Charles Booth's notebook B346 pp100-107
http://booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks/b346/jpg/101.html

Here are some details of that filthy stuff:


Smith Garrett beers
Year Beer Style Price size package FG OG ABV attenuation
1921 Pale Dinner Ale Pale Ale 13d quart bottled 1007.2 1032.9 3.34 78.12%
1921 Oatmeal Stout Stout 13d quart bottled 1010.4 1038.5 3.64 72.99%
1921 Brown Stout Stout 13d quart bottled 1008.8 1038.4 3.84 77.08%
1921 Oatmeal Stout Stout 7.5d pint bottled 1009 1038.3 3.80 76.50%
1921 Pale Dinner Ale Pale Ale 7d pint bottled 1007.2 1031.4 3.14 77.07%
1921 Brown Stout Stout 13d quart bottled 1009.2 1038.4 3.79 76.04%
1924 Stout Stout 7d pint draught
1050.4

1924 X Mild 6d pint draught
1045.1

1926 Porter Porter 5d pint draught
1035.1

1926 Porter Porter 5d pint draught
1031.7

1926 X Mild 6d pint draught
1041.9

1926 Pale Ale Pale Ale 7d pint draught
1044.4

1926 Pale Ale Pale Ale 7d pint draught
1047.5

1927 Strong Ale Strong Ale 8d pint draught
1055.68

Sources:
Whitbread Gravity Book
Truman Gravity Book

Pretty puny stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

But not quite as nearly alcohol-free as this set from Taylor Walker:

Taylor Walker beers
Year Beer Style Price size package FG OG ABV attenuation
1931 Pale Ale Pale Ale 8d pint bottled 1007 1025 2.33 72.00%
1931 Brown Ale Brown Ale 6.5d pint bottled 1009.4 1024 1.88 60.83%
1931 Nourishing Stout Stout 9d pint bottled 1008.4 1027 2.41 68.89%
1931 Brown Ale Brown Ale 8d pint bottled 1009.9 1029.4 2.52 66.33%
1931 Pale Ale Pale Ale 8d pint bottled 1007.6 1032.5 3.23 76.62%
1931 Nourishing Stout Stout 8d pint bottled 1011.5 1029.5 2.32 61.02%
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity Book

Can't imagine it got very rowdy in Taylor Walker pubs. Not amongst the bottled beer drinkers.

2 comments:

Rob Sterowski said...

I'd like to think that the OG of 1027 is why you're not allowed to called anything Nourishing Stout anymore. Could it get much less nourishing?

Martyn Cornell said...

Smith Garrett, of course, were the successors at the Bow brewery to Hodgsons, the people who DIDN'T invent IPA. Taylor Walker had a well-regarded strong(ish) dark mild called Main Line: Allied Breweries tried to revive the name Taylor Walker in the 1980s for its London operations, which is why you can still see some London pubs with little cannons on top of the pub sign (from the Cannon brewery in St John Street, Clerkenwell, which TW took over, and whose tm they used occasionally).