Final results by brewery (part two)

I know. I'm still dragging you along. But I'm determined we'll all make the finishing line, even if I do scrape all the skin off your back.

Five more breweries today, hopefully not quite as dodgy as the last set.

First is Hoare, another of the Porter breweries that popped to prominence in the 18th century.

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Hoare	Burton	1017.2	1054.94	4.89	68.70%	0.67	10	22.22%
Hoare	Pale Ale	1012.1	1046.3	4.44	73.83%	0.00	11	50.00%
Hoare	Porter	1010.4	1034.0	3.06	69.38%	-1.56	9
Hoare	Stout	1017.9	1054.2	4.70	67.06%	0.10	8
Hoare	X	1033.8	1009.8	3.11	71.16%	0.30	8	70.00%
average						-0.10	9.2	47.41%

That's not too bad. Only one negative score, but a pretty dreadful one: -1.56 for their Porter. But, if you remember, lots of the Porters were rubbish, even from breweries whose other beers were good. There are a couple of OK-ish scores for Stout and Mild Ale. Only Burton, with 0.67, gets much of a positive score. Not how that's the style with the worst clarity. One of the big lessons from these analyses is that clarity and quality don't necessarily always walk hand in hand.

Whitbread's choice of breweries seems quite random in some respects. Sure, the big London brewers are there: Courage, Whitbread, Truman, Charrington and Mann. But ones like Huggins and Lion - why pick them? They were neither particularly large nor famous. Especially when larger breweries, like Taylor Walker, were ignored.

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Huggins	Burton	1012.5	1054.2	5.42	76.88%	0.67	11	44.44%
Huggins	Pale Ale	1008.7	1046.0	4.86	81.10%	0.36	6	54.55%
Huggins	Stout	1018.5	1062.1	5.67	70.27%	1.09	4
Huggins	X	1036.0	1008.1	3.63	77.57%	0.20	9	60.00%
average						0.58	7.5	53.00%

I'll be honest. I'd hadn't heard of Huggins before seeing the Whitbread Gravity Book. Having disappeared in the 1920's didn't help. They're the first brewery with all positive scores. However, there's no Porter, a style which let down many of the other breweries. Best scorer is Stout with 1.09, followed by Burton with 0.67. You can see that the beer that was most often clear, X Ale, got the worst average score. While second-best Burton had the worst score for clarity. With an overall average of 0.58 and no negative averages, Huggins seems a fairly safe bet.

Now owners of that spectacular riverside brewery, Lion.

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Lion	Burton	1012.6	1053.73	5.35	76.47%	0.78	8	22.22%
Lion	Porter	1009.6	1037.7	3.64	74.35%	0.63	4
Lion	Pale Ale	1010.7	1046.5	4.65	77.05%	0.00	12	50.00%
Lion	X	1040.9	1007.6	4.33	81.37%	0.40	6	50.00%
average						0.45	7.5	40.74%

The lion which used to stand on top of the brewery is all that remains of the structure, sadly. We've another overall positive average, this time of 0.45. Not quite all positive scores as one is zero, but not too bad. Though once again the top-scorer, Burton, is the worst for clarity, with fewer than a quarter of the samples bright.

Mann was one of the rising stars of London brewing at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Was their popularity merited by the quality of their beer?

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Mann	Burton	1011.7	1053.86	5.49	78.31%	1.25	3	50.00%
Mann	Pale Ale	1008.3	1053.4	5.88	84.44%	0.07	10	35.71%
Mann	Porter	1009.2	1038.8	3.83	76.23%	-0.25	6
Mann	Stout	1012.0	1054.5	5.54	78.05%	0.43	6
Mann	X	1041.3	1008.2	4.26	79.96%	1.33	1	66.67%
average						0.57	5.2	50.79%

Partly. They were famous for their Ales amd, sure enough, both their Burton Ale and Mild Ale score well, averaging over 1. Their Pale Ale and Porter let them down which is why the overall average is only 0.57. For once it was the lowest scorer that was the least bright. I'd  be well served by a Manns pub as Burton and Mild would be my drinks of choice.

Finally this time it's Meux, who had only just vacated their horseshoe brewery at the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street.

Brewery	style	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score	rank	% bright
Meux	Burton	1009.7	1053.31	5.69	81.69%	1.11	4	44.44%
Meux	MA	1028.1	1005.9	2.88	78.93%	-0.57	1	57.14%
Meux	Pale Ale	1007.4	1044.8	4.87	83.36%	0.33	7	41.67%
Meux	Stout	1014.7	1054.9	5.23	73.29%	0.18	7
Meux	X	1041.2	1008.2	4.28	80.02%	0	10	54.55%
average						0.21	5.8	49.45%

That's not too bad. only one negative score and that was for watery MA, the low-gravity Mild. Kiddies Mild I think of it as. At under 3% ABV, it was about as alcoholic as Radler. Their Burton came out on top, with an average of 1.11. However this wasn't reflected in its clarity score, which was a poor 44%.

Right. Just one more last push and the slog is over. Let's hope I can find enough about Lager to keep us entertained.

Hoare Stout quality 1922 - 1925

We're stumbling ever closer to completion of this series. Which reminds me that Alexei needs to get his finger out with the cover illustration.

Let's begin with a random reference to Hoare:

"CASK LIFTS AND DROPS.

In breweries, distilleries, and other manufactories, the products of which are stored and delivered in casks, the transport and raising and lowering of these casks from one floor to another, forms an important item in the total work to be performed. To a certain extent the transportation of the casks, their arrangement in the cellars or stores, &c., must be effected by manual labour; but tho amount of such labour necessary, will depend greatly upon tho construction of the cast raising and lowering apparatus employed, and upon its arrangement with regard to the course which the casks have to take in their progress through the establishment. In breweries it but seldom happens that casks have to be raised through any great height, at all events at a single lift, and the lifting and lowering apparatus which it is desirable to employ differs considerably from that which, could be most profitably used in the case of warehouses, &c, where the goods have to be lifted to the various floors, and sometimes to heights of 70 ft. or 80 ft. In such instances it is generally best to sling the casks, and lift them by cranes in the ordinary way; out where the lifts are low there are other methods of proceeding which give better results. In a number of such hydraulic lifts, capable of taking up a number of casks at once, have been employed with advantage; but they are open to the objection of requiring the casks to be arranged on, and removed from, the platform by manual labour, whilst a man or boy is of course necessary to regulate the movements of the apparatus. The expense of the hydraulic lifts, also, is an objection to their use in small establishments. For raising casks rapidly through a moderate height, and with the smallest amount of accessory manual labour, we believe that no apparatus yet proposed gives better results than that designed more than four and twenty years ago by Mr. Robert Davison, the well-known brewery engineer, and which, though since applied by him in a number of instances, is far from being so well known as it should be. It is for this reason that we now give, on the present page, engravings of one of Mr. Davison's cask-raising machines, and from our illustrations it will be seen that it consists of an arrangement of endless chains provided with "carriages," which carry the casks up an inclined plane. The first machine of this kind was erected at Messrs. Hoare's brewery, in 1814, whilst the second was put up at Messrs. Ind, Coope, and Co.'s, at Romford, and the third at Messrs. Truman's. The machines at Messrs. Hoare's and Messrs. Truman's are still at work, and we believe, though we ore not sure, that that at Romford is also."
"Engineering: An Illustrated Weekly Journal vol. VII January to June 1869", 1869, page 28.

You may remember that Hoare is the brewery where poor bastards had to hunk sacks of malt from the riverside and up several floors by hand. Nice to see that they did have some mechanical aids. Shifting casks about by hand - even when they're empty - is no barrel of laughs. I know how heavy and unmanageable even a firkin is. Back in the day, the majority of casks would have been barrels or hogsheads.

Now on with Hoare's Stout. As a traditional Porter brewery this should have been one of their flagship beers. In terms of specs, the relatively high FG leaves this beer weaker than average, despite having a slightly above par OG. As you can see, it's of the more expensive 9d (8d after 1923) type.

How did it fare?

Hoare Stout quality 1922 - 1925
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Flavour	score	Price
1922	Stout	1020.8	1056.8	4.65	63.38%	fine rather thin	1	9
1922	Stout	1018.7	1054.2	4.59	65.50%	going off	-2	9
1922	Stout	1019.8	1055.8	4.66	64.52%	good	2	9
1922	Stout	1018.8	1055	4.68	65.82%	v poor	-2	9
1923	Stout	1020.4	1055.4	4.52	63.18%	fair	1	9
1923	Stout	1018.6	1055.1	4.72	66.24%	fair	1	9
1923	Stout	1017.5	1050.5	4.27	65.35%	fair	1	8
1923	Stout	1013.6	1051.6	4.94	73.64%	moderate	0	9
1923	Stout	1017.4	1054.4	4.79	68.01%	v fair	2	8
1925	Stout	1013.2	1052.7	5.13	74.95%	unpleasant	-3	8
Average		1017.9	1054.2	4.70	67.06%		0.10
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

Do that well, really. True, seven of the ten examples got positive scores, but most were just ones. As the bad ones were all pretty bad, they almost cancelled out the good scores, leaving a paltry positive average of 0.10.

For the time-traveller, Hoare Stout is Russian roulette. Russian roulette with two bullets in the revolver: there's around a one in three chance of blowing your brains out.

Hoare Porter quality 1922 - 1923

You may have noticed that I'm rattling through the Porter much more quickly than the Pale Ales. Not sure why. It certainly isn't because of the high quality of the beers.

Because, to be honest, most of the Porter samples were crap. Of the whole set, only one got the maximum score of three.

If you can remember back as far as the earlier posts in this series, Hoare gambled on expansion in the 1920's. A gamble which failed when they were saddled with too much debt. It ultimately led to their takeover by Charrington in 1933, bringing to an end several hundred years of brewing on the site.

This is the bit where I look at how their other beers performed. Starting with Mild Ale, which cam eighth of seventeen, averaging 0.30. Middling, is all I can say. Their Burton Ale only came 10th of fourteen, but because the standard of Burton Ales was high, it still averaged 0.67. Their Pale Ale came joint eleventh of fifteen with an average score of zero. Overall, not that great.

Let's see how their Porter did:

Hoare Porter quality 1922 - 1923
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Flavour	score	Price
1922	Porter	1010.8	1033.8	2.98	68.05%	poor	-1	6d
1922	Porter	1011	1037.3	3.41	70.51%	poor going off	-2	6d
1922	Porter	1010.5	1035	3.17	70.00%	quite sour	-2	6d
1922	Porter	1009.7	1033.7	3.11	71.22%	v sour	-3	6d
1923	Porter	1011.6	1032.6	2.71	64.42%	fair	1	6d
1923	Porter	1008.4	1031.9	3.05	73.67%	going off	-2	6d
1923	Porter	1011.7	1033.2	2.78	64.76%	moderate	1	6d
1923	Porter	1009.8	1034.5	3.20	71.59%	sour	-3	6d
1923	Porter	1010.2	1034.2	3.11	70.18%	thin - unpleasant	-3	6d
Average		1010.4	1034.0	3.06	69.38%		-1.56
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

That's very disappointing for a brewery that had been one of the big boys in the early days of London Porter. Once again, there are lots of really poor examples. By the number of "sour" or "going off" comments it sounds like the beer had been sitting around too long in the pub cellar. Less than a quarter of the samples - just two - got positive scores. The overall average is a very poor -1.56.

Stay away from the Porter in a Hoare's pub, is my advice for the time traveller.

Charrington buys Hoare

It was a sad day when Charrington finally clinched the deal to buy Hoare's Red Lion brewery. Because it meant the end of the road for not just London's oldest brewery but London's oldest business of any kind.

Hoare's had already been around for more than two centuries when it was a moderately successful Porter brewery in the 18th century. It probably dated back to at least 1492, when a Flemish brewer called John Merchant was granted a licence to export beer by Henry VII*.

Walter Hoare, the last family member on the board, wrote to a fellow director:

"I think that you will agree that to most of us it is a tragedy to know that the oldest business in London must shortly be closed down"

One of the conditions of Charrington's offer was that  all brewing be concentrated at their Anchor Brewery in Mile End**. It was a logical enough decision. Their site was much less hemmed in than the Red Lion brewery, which had no realistic prospect of expanding its premises.

For Charrington it was an opportunity to greatly expand their business. Especially as Hoare controlled slightly more pubs than they did, 1,061 to 909***.

Charrington's offer seems pretty reasonable, consisting of a combination of cash and shares in Charrington.

"BIG BREWERY DEAL
CITY OFFICE of "The Yorkshire Post," 1 and 2 Great Winchester Street, London, E.C.2.
Wednesday Evening.
For some time past there have been confident rumours of an amalgamation scheme in which Hoare and Co., the well-known London brewery undertaking, was stated to be concerned. It is now announced that Charrington and Co.. the Mile-End brewers, have made an offer for the £1 shares of Hoare and Co. The Charrington offer, a condition of which is that holders of at least 90 per cent, of the shares of Hoare and Co. shall accept, is—(a) a sum of £1 10s. per share in cash, (b) three fully-paid Charrington 4 per Cent. Cumulative Preference shares for every five Hoare shares, and (c) two fully-paid Charrington £1 Ordinary shares for every five Hoare shares. In other words, a Hoare shareholder would, under the offer now being made, receive, for every five shares held, £7 10s. in cash, three Charrington. 4 per cent: Preference shares, and two Charrington Ordinary shares. As the existing Charrington Ordinary capital is privately held there is no market quotation for these shares, but, if the scheme goes through, permission to deal in them on  the Stock Exchange will be sought in due course. Generally speaking, the market approved the terms of the offer and Hoare shares receded only about 1s., to 53s.

Finance of the Offer
In order to carry through the deal with Hoare and Co., and Charrington Co. will increase its capital by the creation of 1,169,438 4 per Cent. Cumulative Preference £1 shares and 838,875 Ordinary shares, while the existing shares of both classes, at present of £10 denomination will be split into £1 shares. If the amalgamation goes through, the Charrington share capital will consist of £2,594,438 in 4 per Cent. Preference shares and £2,933,313 in £1 Ordinary shares or a total of £4,933,313. The Charrington loan capital is at present £957,443 in 3.5 per Cent. Debenture stock. It is proposed that the company should increase its borrowing powers to £6,000,000 and that the cash required to complete the deal with Hoare be provided by a new issue of Debenture stock on due course. Considerable economies are expected from the fusion and the Hoare directors, who are interested in more than one-half of the issued capital of their company, recommend the scheme for acceptance.

In respect of 1931, Charrington and Co. paid a dividend of 12 per cent. on the Ordinary shares, against 16 per cent, for each the preceding three years. Their 1932 accounts are not yet available. The last accounts of Hoare and Co. were made up to April 18 1932, and in respect of that year the dividend was cut down from 21 to 17 per cent. Or account of the current period the interim dividend was reduced in January last from 7 to 5 per cent."
The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Thursday 23 March 1933, page 13.

Of course it was a gamble on Charrington's part. With the creation of new shares they increased the company's share capital by just over £2 million. And they needed to borrow sufficient cash to pay for Hoare's shares. At £1.50 a pop, that's just over £3 million. Plus the directors would be giving up some control, assuming that the privately-held Ordinary Shares were split amongst them and their families.

All that in the middle of the Great Depression and a time when beer consumption in Britain had slumped to its lowest level since the end of WW I.

* "The Red Lion Brewery" by Victoria Hutchings, 2013, page 11.
** "The Red Lion Brewery" by Victoria Hutchings, 2013, page 118.
*** "The Red Lion Brewery" by Victoria Hutchings, 2013, page 118.

Hoare Strong Ale 1922 - 1933

Here's the final set of Hoare beers from the 1920's and 1930's.

I realise I've been a bit thick again. On page 119 in "The Red Lion Brewery" there's a photo of a Hoare price list of draught beers. Now I've looked at it properly, I can see that I made a few mistakes in this series of Hoare's beers.

Biggest surprise was seeing two draught Stouts. It explains quite a bit. My analyses were for two different beers. That's why the gravities seemed a bit odd.

Something similar is going on with their Strong Ale.  The one called XXX wasn't really a Strong Ale at all, but a stronger Mild. Though it's called Strong Ale in the Truman Gravity Book. Whitbread correctly identified it as XXX, but called Hoare's Burton KK, when the official name was XXXX. Confused?

There were also two different Milds amongst the samples, XX and XXX. Though both were called X in the Gravity Books.

In addition there are three beers for which I appear to have no samples at all: X, LA and IPA. It's annoying that the latter is missing. I can't recall another London IPA that was so strong. Unlike Barclay Perkins and Whitbread, Hoare's IPA was stronger than their PA. I understand now why only their Ordinary Bitter appeared with the other PA's in the Gravity Books. Because that was the beer Hoare called PA.

Here's what's in the price list:

Hoare draught beers September 1931
name	description	price per barrel (shillings)	retail price per pint
X	Mild Ale	98	5d
XX	Mild Ale	116	6d
XXX	Mild Ale	138	7d
XXXX	Burton Ale	184	9d
P	Porter	116	6d
S	Stout	160	8d
DS	Double Stout	184	9d
LA	Country Ale	98	5d
PA	Pale Ale	160	8d
IPA	India Pale Ale	184	9d
Source:
Hoare's price list.

And here's what the gravities of them all are. Mostly taken from analyses, but, in the case of X, LA and IPA, I've guessed them.

Hoare draught beer prices and OG 1923 - 1931
name	description	OG	retail price per pint
X	Mild Ale	1028	4d
XX	Mild Ale	1034	5d
XXX	Mild Ale	1045	6d
XXXX	Burton Ale	1054	8d
P	Porter	1034	5d
S	Stout	1046	7d
DS	Double Stout	1054	8d
LA	Country Ale	1028	4d
PA	Pale Ale	1047	7d
IPA	India Pale Ale	1054	8d

LA is a funny one. From its position on the price list, it must be a Pale Ale. But a very low gravity one. I've not seen an equivalent beer from other London brewers, though I have seen similar ones from country brewers. Whitbread had a beer called LA, but that was a 4d Mild Ale.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were only three base brews from which all these beers were parti-gyled: one for X, XX, XXX and XXXX; one for P, S and DS;; and one for LA, PA and IPA.

The Burton (XXXX for Hoare, KK or Strong Ale below) is very typical: mid 1050's and around 5% ABV. XXX at 1045 is right up at the top end gravity-wise of a 6d Mild. Most rival examples were a couple of degrees lower.

The one bottled example, Imperial Ale, is an intriguing one. It looks a similar beer to Barclay Perkin KK (Bottling), which was marketed as Old Southwarke Ale and had a gravity of around 1070.

Hoare Strong Ale 1922 - 1933
Year	Beer	Price	size	package	Acidity	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1922	KK	9d	pint	draught		1015.5	1056.5	5.33	72.57%
1923	KK	9d	pint	draught		1015	1055.5	5.26	72.97%
1923	KK	8d	pint	draught		1017	1055	4.93	69.09%
1926	Strong Ale	8d	pint	draught			1052.2
1927	Strong Ale	8d	pint	draught			1054.2
1928	KK	8d	pint	draught		1011.5	1052.1	5.28	77.93%
1928	Strong Ale	8d	pint	draught			1045
1929	KK	8d	pint	draught	0.07	1017.5	1055.3	4.90	68.35%
1930	KK	8d	pint	draught		1016.5	1055	4.99	70.00%
1930	Strong Ale	8d	pint	draught			1046.08
1930	Strong Ale	8d	pint	draught			1053.2
1931	KK	8d	pint	draught	0.06	1015.9	1052.3	4.72	69.60%
1931	XXX	8d	pint	draught	0.07	1010	1045	4.55	77.78%
1932	Strong Ale	8d	pint	draught			1047.6
1932	Strong Ale	8d	pint	draught			1043.7
1933	Imperial Ale	9d	half	bottled	0.10	1015.5	1077.9	8.18	80.10%
1933	XXX	7d	pint	draught	0.08	1011.7	1046	4.45	74.57%
1933	Strong Ale	8d	pint	draught			1049.4
1933	Strong Ale	7d	pint	draught			1047.13
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252

It seems like we've been on this series for ever. What will I do myself now it's done?