Thursday 4 March 2010

Smith Garrett aka Hodgson's of Bow

Zythophile has thankfully just corrected a grave error in my last post. One, I may add, that I had copied from Andrew Campbell. Mixing up London's two Hodgson's breweries. The one in Kingston was completely unrelated to the famous one in Bow. Where IPA was supposedly "invented". Apologies for any confusion.

As Zythophile commented, Hodgson's of Bow became Smith Garrett before being gobbled up by neighbours Taylor Walker in 1927. He should know, as he's written an article for the Brewery History Society on the brewery. This seems a  good excuse to post a couple of titbits about Smith Garrett.

This first is taken from an interview in the 1890's with a local policeman. He wasn't very impressed with their beer:

"Charrington´s is about the best beer in the neighbourhood. But a great deal of filthy stuff is sold. The Brewers put in as managers men to whom they have advanced large sums. These men must make money. To makemoney they must adulterate. If they don´t, they lose and the brewers foreclose. Some firms are very hard. Perhaps the worst are Brewers at the corner of the Bow Road just before you come to the Stratford Bridge;their name is Smith & Garrett and the beer they sell is bad. Taylor Walker in Limehouse used to be large brewers and do a great Indian trade as well as own the houses in Limehouse. But the India trade has failed them and trade has left Limehouse so they are in a bad way now compared to former years."
*Interview with Inspector Carter*
B346 pp100-107
http://booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks/b346/jpg/101.html

Next are the details of some of Smith Garrett's beers, just before they disappeared:


Smith Garrett beers
Year
Beer
Style
Price
size
package
OG
1926
Porter
Porter
5d
pint
draught
1035.1
1926
Porter
Porter
5d
pint
draught
1031.7
1926
X
Mild
6d
pint
draught
1041.9
1926
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
7d
pint
draught
1044.4
1926
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
7d
pint
draught
1047.5
1927
Strong Ale
Strong Ale
8d
pint
draught
1055.68
Source:
Truman Gravity Book


That's it. Just a little interlude, really.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That bottle label is a short chapter on brewery history in its own right: the Cannon name and trademark from the brewery in St John Street, Clerkenwell taken over by Taylor Walker, in turn taken over by Ind Coope.

Gary Gillman said...

Ron, this account from 1880 explains why the export pale ale trade fell off:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=nGEOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA12&dq=India+%2B+Hill+breweries&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1800&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=1900&as_brr=0&cd=3#v=onepage&q=India%20%2B%20Hill%20breweries&f=false

What is noteworthy is the rather dour look at the quality issue. Even writing in 1880, the writer considered that beer shipped to the stations from the ports was "more or less sour". Makes one wonder if the keynote flavour of Hodgson and the other pale beers in India was a lightly acid taste, which may have been appreciated in a very hot country. In certain farm areas including in (much less warm) England, workers drank fruit vinegar to refresh - lambic may offer an analogy here.

Anyway, the fame of Hodgson's and the other pale beers tailed off pretty fast by the last quarter of the 1800's. More than just Colonial decline and/or Indian self-assertion was involved, IMO. At bottom, I believe the pale ale of the Raj just wasn't that good. The moment fresh local beer became available, and later lager from whatever source, the old London innovation disappeared without a trace.

At a nice Indian restaurant recently I asked the owners, Indian-Canadians, why the otherwise interesting beer list (E.g., it featured fruited and other craft beers, Pilsner Urquel, some good German beers) had no India Pale Ale on it. We have local types and some good imports (e.g., Greene King's IPA at an export strength of 5%) that would go champion with the fine food there. The staff were kind to invite suggestions but seemed not to know that India Pale Ale once had writ in the Sub-Continent. You couldn't blame them. Even in 1880 the beer of which the expeditionary regiments dreamed and would-be scribblers wrote countless doggerel was almost no more.

Gary