Anyone have any old Charrington info?

[seymour]

I'm always on the look-out for historical English brewing information: grainbills, recipes, etc. I recently reread George Orwell's 1984, which has lots of beer references I never noticed before.

For instance: the elderly "prole" man he rents the room from is named Mr. Charrington. It occured to me I've never seen anything specific from Charrington brewery records. It seems strange, considering it was a major London brewer from 1738-1975. I know it was merged into Bass for its last decade, but I don't even have anything from that era. Ron Pattinson has listed a few gravity/ABV/apparent attenuation details on his blog, and I know NCYC 241 is Charrington's Anchor Brewery yeast strain from 1951 and NCYC 713 is Charrington's Anchor Brewery yeast strain from 1967. But that's it.

So, I know that in 1950 Charrington IPA had an original gravity of 1044 and once finished contained 4.3% alcohol by volume, and was likely fermented using the NCYC 241, but I don't know anything else about what went into the beer. Supposedly, Charrington Anchor Stout, Jubilee Stout and Sweetheart Stout were delicious, but I can't find any specifics.

I was wondering how much more you guys might know? Types of malt, grainbill percentanges, types of hops, how hoppy, etc?

[Dennis King]

Charringtons were one of the main pub owners around my area so I drank in a lot of their pubs in my teenage years but the bitter they sold was almost always the bland and tasteless kegged Toby bitter. I would tend to go for Guinness in those pubs. I worked in the Hatton Garden area of London at the time and we had a wealth of great pubs within walking distance for our lunchtime bevy however if we worked Saturday mornings the only pub open in the area was the Castle outside Farringdon station, a Charrington house, and it sold their IPA. At best I would describe it as a half reasonable pint, certainly was never 4.3% in those days. Most of the Bass owned brewery's standard bitters, Stones, M&B etc. were around 3.8 at best. Light in colour so I would say no dark malts and would have thought the hops would have been the standard English hops of the day Goldings, Fuggles, Challenger etc. The man I worked for at the time said in his younger years Charringtons was one the best beers in London, he preferred it to Fullers, but hadn't been the same for at least 20 years according to him. Before my days.

[seymour]

Fascinating. Thanks, Dennis.
So if I wanna bother brewing a Charrington's clone, it oughtta be something from 1940s or earlier, huh?

[Dennis King]

Don't think I would want to produce the 1970's one, was not a bad one, just ordinary, as were many of the big brewery beers of the time, Bass was still a great pint in those days though. I too like a bit of brewery history, you may find this interesting.

[patto1ro]

My guess would be that in 1950 Charrinton IPA had a grist something like this:

75% pale malt
15% invert sugar (probably No. 2)
10% flaked maize
caramel for colour correction

[seymour]

That's great info, thank you very much, Ron! That's a mighty adjuncty brew, huh? No wonder there aren't more fond memories from the era. That said, I still think a well-crafted hops-forward IPA can cover a multitude of grainbill sins.

Have you ever seen any Charrington specifics from the late 1800s/early 1900s?

And would you expect the hops were mainly Goldings? Or is it impossible to know? It's been educational to find so much Hallertau, Cluster, British Columbian, Belgian Popperings, etc, in your historical records...

[patto1ro]

That's great info, thank you very much, Ron! That's a mighty adjuncty brew, huh? No wonder there aren't more fond memories from the era. That said, I still think a well-crafted hops-forward IPA can cover a multitude of grainbill sins.

Have you ever seen any Charrington specifics from the late 1800s/early 1900s?

And would you expect the hops were mainly Goldings? Or is it impossible to know? It's been educational to find so much Hallertau, Cluster, British Columbian, Belgian Popperings, etc, in your historical records...

As far as I know, Charringtron's brewing records haven't survived. A whole load of other records have, but no brewing books.

I've had a quick look at some other London records from the period and it looks like all English hops. Fuggles and Goldings at Barclay Perkins, Kent and Worcester hops at Whitbread.

[seymour]

Thanks again!

While I'm already bugging you, I have one more George Orwell related beer question.

I came across this excellent article, which states:

"...The beer Orwell would have carried home in that jug was Simpson’s dark mild from the little market town of Baldock, a few miles from Wallington. The Plough had been owned by the brewery from at least 1799, when the brewery itself was owned by the Pryor family, relatives of the Simpsons – one branch of the Pryors owned Harwood’s old brewery in Shoreditch, and later became partners in the big London porter brewery Truman Hanbury & Buxton in Brick Lane. Simpson’s lovely old Georgian-fronted brewery was acquired by Greene King in 1954, and closed in 1965 (and demolished soon after, a crime against fine architecture)..."

I've been trying and trying, but can't come up with anything else about Simpsons Dark Mild. Do you know anything about it's makeup?

[patto1ro]

Thanks again!

While I'm already bugging you, I have one more George Orwell related beer question.

I came across this excellent article, which states:

"...The beer Orwell would have carried home in that jug was Simpson’s dark mild from the little market town of Baldock, a few miles from Wallington. The Plough had been owned by the brewery from at least 1799, when the brewery itself was owned by the Pryor family, relatives of the Simpsons – one branch of the Pryors owned Harwood’s old brewery in Shoreditch, and later became partners in the big London porter brewery Truman Hanbury & Buxton in Brick Lane. Simpson’s lovely old Georgian-fronted brewery was acquired by Greene King in 1954, and closed in 1965 (and demolished soon after, a crime against fine architecture)..."

I've been trying and trying, but can't come up with anything else about Simpsons Dark Mild. Do you know anything about it's makeup?

No, not got anything on that brewery at all, I'm afraid.

[Normski]

Hi Seymour

I’ve got a two 1978 Bass Charrington recipes from Dave Lines.

They are Toby Light Ale & Carling Black Label.

Toby 25L. OG 1035
2.4kg Pale Malt, 400g Malt extract syrup, 250g Soft Brown Sugar,
60g Fuggles 90min, 45g Bramling Cross 90min.

Black Label 25L, OG 1039
2250g Lager Malt, 1000g Sugar,
100g Hallertau 90min,

I lived in London inthe 70's and remember drinking Light an bitter. (Half pint of kegged bitter with a bottle of Toby light ale mixed)
Only thing I remember was it had a picture of a Toby Jug on the label.

Norm

[jimp2003]

Hi Seymour. According to THIS document on page 301 it states that Hertfordshire Record Office at County Hall have the brewing books for Simpsons from 1853-1860 and 1931-1954.

Not sure if that office gives a service for long-distance research or if you have to go to there and search though.

[patto1ro]

Hi Seymour. According to THIS document on page 301 it states that Hertfordshire Record Office at County Hall have the brewing books for Simpsons from 1853-1860 and 1931-1954.

Not sure if that office gives a service for long-distance research or if you have to go to there and search though.

Some archives will photograqph documents, for a charge. West Yorkshire Archives took photos of Tetley's brewing records for me and made a pretty good job of it. Better than my photos, to be honest.

[seymour]

Several good leads; THANK YOU, guys. I'll definitely look into it.

UPDATE: I sent a research request email to the Hertfordshire Record Office, and started a separate thread about Simpsons Dark Mild. I'll post any updates over there.

[The Epworth Brewer]

I never spotted this thread 3 years ago so thanks hannamarin1 for taking me back to my youth. Charrington's was still on the go when I first started venturing in to pubs, 15 years old and a face as downy as a babies bum, don't know how I got away with it. I seem to think it was one of the drinks that you bought in 7 pint tins and had to puncture to get in to it as you settled down to watch the Cup Final.
Then it became Bass Charrington, but we quickly re-named it Bas***d Charrington when walking in to our local one night to be confronted by Brew Ten.
I have a small, but steadily growing collection of pint glasses and my prized possession is a Charrington handled glass weighing 690 grams. You wouldn't want wacking over the head with it whilst on a night out back then. I don't know when it would have been made but it cost me £1.75 from a charity shop in Keswick a couple of years ago. Beautiful.