Thursday 11 June 2015

Benskin’s beers 1944 - 1960

Here, as promised, are Benskin’s beers for the immediate post-war years.

It looks like pretty much a full set of their beers, which is nice. There’s a reason for that. Watford being just outside London, it was on Whitbread’s patch. So a competitor, and quite a large one as they had 600-odd pubs. They were bound to have attracted Whitbread’s attention.

Let’s start with the strongest, Colne Spring Ale. Notice something strange about it? A really high degree of attenuation for a beer of its strength. That screams one thing at me: Brettanomyces. It’s hard to see how you could get the FG so low without Brettanomyces playing a part. As you can see, it wasn’t cheap at 5 shillings a pint. Then again, it was four times the strength of their weaker beers.

What else is there? A bog-standard looking Brown Ale. It looks very much like a bottled version of the X Ale. And look there – the IPA is one of the weakest beers. Looks very much in the Southern, low-gravity styles. Light Sparkling Ale seems to have had its name chopped down to just Light Ale in the mid-1950’s. Around 3% ABV is what you’d expect it to be.

The Stout is an interesting one. It looks like a Scottish one, with attenuation below 50%. You can see that the OG fell and the FG rose as the 1950’s progressed. Sweet and barely alcoholic. A bit like me, really.

Not sure what the beer for the Belgian market was. I can’t read the name. Maybe it’s a Scotch Ale. No, a bit weak for that. Pale Ale, maybe. Why have a Jubilee Beer in 1953? Surely it should be a Coronation Beer?

Moving on to the draught beers, they look, well, normal. I’ve seen weaker ones in the 1950’s.

That’s all for Benskin’s for now.

Benskin bottled beers 1944 - 1960
Year Beer Style Price Acidity OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation colour
1953 Colne Spring Ale Barley Wine 60 0.05 1090.7 1008.2 10.95 90.96% 1 + 8
1955 Colne Spring Ale Barley Wine 60 0.08 1091.8 1011.1 10.69 87.91% 75
1960 Colne Spring Ale Barley Wine 0.04 1092.2 1007.6 11.25 91.76% 68
1951 Nut Brown Ale Brown Ale 16 0.06 1032.9 1008.1 3.22 75.38% 11 + 40
1951 India Pale Ale IPA 20 0.07 1029.3 1006.3 2.98 78.50% 20 B
1944 Bitter Ale Pale Ale 0.06 1027.6 1008.1 2.52 70.65% 22 B
1956 Light Ale Pale Ale 19 0.04 1031.4 1009.8 2.79 68.79% 25
1946 Light Sparkling Ale Pale Ale 13 0.04 1028.9 1004.9 3.12 83.04% 20.5 B
1947 Light Sparkling Ale Pale Ale 12.5 0.08 1029.4 1008.7 2.68 70.41% 18.5
1947 Light Sparkling Ale Pale Ale 16 0.08 1029.6 1007 2.93 76.35% 20.5
1951 Light Sparkling Ale Pale Ale 16 0.08 1032.6 1008.1 3.18 75.15% 18 B
1951 Brown Stout Stout 20 0.06 1039.2 1013.6 3.31 65.31% 1 + 18
1953 Brown Stout Stout 21 0.07 1036.6 1014.2 2.89 61.20% 1 + 11.5
1953 Brown Stout Stout 21 0.04 1037.6 1018.3 2.48 51.33% 275
1955 Double Stout Stout 24 0.04 1036.2 1018.6 2.26 48.62% 250
1955 Double Stout Stout 22 0.02 1036.1 1018.3 2.29 49.31% 275
1950 ???? Ale Bottled in Belgium Strong Ale 0.09 1060.3 1011.3 6.40 81.26% 18 B
1953 Jubilee Beer Strong Ale 30 0.06 1054 1017.7 4.70 67.22% 14.5 + 40
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.


Benskin draught beers 1952 - 1953
Year Beer Style Price OG colour
1953 X Mild 13 1031.5 84
1952 Pale Ale Pale Ale 18 1039 23
1953 Pale Ale Pale Ale 16 1037.2 18
Source:
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252

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