Monday 7 December 2015

Branded Stout in 1953

Still there? I didn’t think so. I’m used to talking to myself. The family isn’t exactly fascinated by beer history.

“Stop being annoying, Dad.” Is Alexei’s normal response to a remark about hop usage in Scotland in the 1860’s. No interest in anything, these young people. Amazingly, not even the brands of Stout available in the early 1950’s. Un-fucking-believable.

Branded Stout. Not something I’d given a load of thought to. But now I think about it, old labels for Stouts quite often have names. Which explains the very long list. And is more evidence that Guinness were far from monopolising the Stout market. Confirming Stout was an important product for breweries at the time. Why else go to the trouble of naming them.

Doubtless it’s also connected with Stout becoming an exclusively bottled beer for most breweries. Draught Stout was still about in London in the 1950’s, but not really anywhere else. At a certain point, most drinkers must have expected Stout always to be in bottled form.

But there remained a sizeable market for Stout. In Mass Observation’s Bolton of the late 1930’s, it’s mostly women drinking Stout. My guess is that was still the case in the early 1950’s. Sweet Stout is certainly what my Mum drank in the 1960’s. In fact her beer of choice is in the list: Warwick & Richardson’s Milk Maid Stout. She was most upset when it was discontinued after the brewery was absorbed into the Courage group.

I’m keeping in short. I’ll just remark that many of the beers just classes as Stout were Sweet Stouts. Milk Maid, for example. That’s why my Mum liked it: sweet and not too alcoholic. Many examples of this type of Stout were under 3% ABV.


Branded Stout in 1953
Brewery Brand Type
Ansells Brewery Tonic Bottled Stout
Beamish & Crawford Foreign Extra Bottled Stout
Daniel Thwaites "Cream of All Stout" Bottled Stout
Fuller, Smith & Turner Samson Bottled Stout
Barclay, Perkins Victory Formerly Milk Stout
Taylor, Walker Cannon Stout High gravity
Brickwood Black Brlcky Ex-Strong Stout
Star Brewery Club Stout Stout
Abington Brewery Oak Stout Stout
Arthur Guinness, Son Harp Stout
Atkinsons Brewery Punch Stout
Beamish & Crawford An Tostal Stout
Castletown Brewery Manx Maid Stout
Castletown Brewery Manx Oyster Stout Stout
Charrington Anchor Stout
Charrington Punch Stout
Cobb & Co. Margate Stout Stout
East African Breweries Nguvu Stout
East Anglian Breweries Silk Stout Stout
H. & G. Simonds Archangel Stout
H. & G. Simonds Velvet Stout
Harman's Uxbridge Brewery Snip Stout
Hope & Anchor Breweries Royal Jubilee Stout
Hope & Anchor Breweries Vi Stout
J. G. Swales SOS Stout
J. W. Lees & Co. Archer Stout
Marston Mylki Stout
Massey's Burnley Brewery Prize  Stout Stout
Northampton Brewery Jumbo Stout
P. Phipps Little Rat Stout
Queensland Brewery Bulimba Red Top Stout
Richard Whitaker & Sons Standard Stout
Robert Younger Oat Creme Stout
South African Breweries Gluko Stout
Timothy Taylor Black Bess Stout
Tollemache's Breweries Beano Stout
Warwicks & Richardsons Milk Maid Stout
Wm. Younger Capital Stout
Worksop & Retford Brewery Prior well Stout
Walters Trinidad Brewing Black Velvet Stout & Milk Stout
West Riding Bottling White Rose Stout and Mild Ale
Duncan Gilmour Milk Round Stout bottled
Campbell Praed Red well Stout, bottled
W. Butler All Malt Stout, bottled
Frederic Robinson Unicorn Sweet Stout
Hope & Anchor Breweries Jubilee Sweet Stout
James Hole Castle Stout Sweet Stout
Source:
Brewery Manual 1953-1954, pages 382 - 394.

Light Ale next, I think. Pretty sure there were some of those.

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