Monday 21 December 2009

Courage Mild and Bitter in the 1930's

True to my sad nature, I've been whiling away a few hours transcribing beer details from the Whitbread Gravity Book (part one). Still a few thousand entries to go. But something caught my about the Courage beers of the 1930's.

I've mentioned the catastrophic rise in beer in 1931 before. The one that caused beer sales to slump to such an extent that government revenues fell. It had a couple of weird side-effects.

These are the details of the tax hike:

British brewing overview 1920 – 1939

Production (barrels)

Production (hl)

Average OG

tax per standard barrel

Net excise receipts (pounds)

1920

35,047,947

57,358,068

1039.41

70s

71,276,230

1921

34,504,570

56,468,799

1042.61

100s

123,406,257

1922

30,178,731

49,389,304

1042.88

100s

121,844,583

1923

23,948,651

39,193,404

1042.72

100s

92,262,893

1924

25,425,017

41,609,566

1043.04

80s

76,110,638

1925

26,734,825

43,753,145

1043.12

80s

75,825,827

1926

26,765,610

43,803,527

1043.23

80s

76,320,021

1927

25,100,461

41,078,410

1043.28

80s

78,763,480

1928

25,435,145

41,626,141

1043.17

80s

77,800,471

1929

24,608,000

40,272,468

1043.10

80s

1930

25,061,956

41,015,395

1042.90

80s

71,254,674

1931

23,900,000

39,113,784

1042.50

114s

1932

20,790,812

34,025,411

1041.04

114s

68,710,020

1933

17,950,303

29,376,748

1039.52

80s

67,097,581

1934

20,182,308

33,029,558

1040.99

80s

53,884,405

1935

20,864,814

34,146,520

1041.06

80s

53,582,335

1936

21,969,763

35,954,835

1041.02

80s

55,451,926

1937

22,724,450

37,189,926

1041.10

80s

57,318,585

1938

24,205,631

39,613,967

1041.02

80s

61,241,404

1939

24,674,992

40,382,105

1040.93

80s

62,370,034

Source:

Brewers' Almanack 1928, p. 110

Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50



The brewers didn't react as expected to the tax increase. Though, given their past actions, the government really were being a bit thick. Rather than increase the retail price, brewers cut gravities.

But they didn't cut the gravity of every beer. Some of the posher ones - like Bitter - remained the same strength. Which caused the strength differential between Bitter and Mild to expand. Take a look at Courage:


Courage Mild and Bitter in the 1930's

Year

Beer

Style

Price

size

package

FG

OG

ABV

attenuation

1934

X

Mild

5d

pint

draught

1011.1

1035.3

3.02

68.56%

1934

X

Mild

5d

pint

draught

1008.9

1036

3.39

75.28%

1934

X

Mild

5d

pint

draught

1008.7

1034

3.16

74.41%

1934

X

Mild

5d

pint

draught

1010.8

1035

3.03

69.14%

1935

X

Mild

5d

pint

draught

1010

1035

3.13

71.43%

1935

X

Mild

5d

pint

draught

1011

1035

3.00

68.57%

1936

X

Mild

5d

pint

draught

1011.2

1034.7

2.94

67.72%

1936

PA

Pale Ale

8d

pint

draught

1010.1

1052.8

5.34

80.87%

1937

PA

Pale Ale

8d

pint

draught

1011.9

1051.9

5.00

77.07%

1937

PA

Pale Ale

8d

pint

draught

1012.8

1052.3

4.94

75.53%

Source:

Whitbread Gravity Book


The Mild could be one of today, at around 1035. The Bitter is half as strong again at 1052.

So why is the differential so much smaller now? WW II. Simple as that. When average gravity was set at 1037, its gravity was slashed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Curse you, Adolf Hitler …

Of course, the slump in beer sales after a big rise in tax is particularly relevant today with the neo-puritans urging a tax rise as the way to cut the alleged scourge of binge drinking. Clearly what happened in the early 1930s was that in the public bar, at least – where the working classes drank mild – the price of beer was relatively inelastic (as we A-level economists say) and sales dived when the tax went on, so the price rise hit all lower-income drinkers, not just those who drank a lot. Of course, the neo-prohibitionists KNOW higher prices will affect everubody, they're not really targeting the "excessive" drinkers, they're targeting all of us …