Whitbread Tankard’s Literal 1930s Roots
This continues my series on beer and brewing in Mandate Palestine, which started here. A June 19, 1938 article in the Palestine Post pegged domestic beer consumption in 1937 at 2,450,000 L, including imports for the general public market of 730,000 L.
Palestine Brewery Ltd. produced 1,700,000 L of the 1937 demand. Sales to the army dropped significantly in 1937 over 1936, reflecting a drop in service personnel strength, according to this account.
Still, H.M. Forces bought 100,000 L from Palestine Brewery Ltd. in 1937, and imported through N.A.A.F.I. 420,000 L. So that’s a lot of services beer, about a million shaker pints. During World War II demand greatly increased further, particularly when imports, British or other except for military needs, faltered under war conditions.
The spike was met by a spur in local production. Australian imports helped as well, as an Australian press story showed (Border Morning Mail, March 4, 1940).
As an example of how local beer was consumed, a 1940 dispatch in the Australian press by an A.I.F. sergeant gives the flavour (The Dowerin Guardian, etc., April 27, 1940). Some of the A.I.F. played a football match with a Maccabee , viz. Jewish athletics team in Rishon LeZion. The sergeant noted with the understatement characteristic of the time:
Of the social aspect of the match the district paper said: “Local-style refreshments and produce were prominent and did much to lend cheer to the occasion.” Perhaps it should be explained that a large brewery is situated at Rishon.
While the tone of the article suggests some apprehension before match regarding the people the A.I.F. would encounter and how things would go, it indicates the A.I.F. thoroughly enjoyed the meet-up.
Whitbread Brewery was astute to develop friends among the military complement, just as breweries have done immemorially.
An October 5, 1940 report in Adelaide’s The Mail shows slouch-hatted A.I.F. men in London gazing at a chalkboard billing a tour of Whitbread’ Brewery. Another picture shows the A.I.F. “at dusk” in their headquarters in Palestine enjoying tall bottles of beer.
Whitbread supported the snooker pastime in Palestine, one of the ways was to offer winners a “Whitbread Tankard”. See the account in the Palestine Post, November 11, 1937 (“Whitbread Tankard Holder Beaten”). A group from the Palestine Police played a team of British civilians.
And so, as we saw in Part VI Whitbread was selling at N.A.A.F.I. a draft beer that to all appearances was a modern keg beer. Its 1936 advert, atypically for the time, actually stated the beer came from a “keg” (p. 9).
Whitbread awarded snooker champions a metal tankard engraved with the company name. For a handsome Whitbread Tankard that looks of the era, see in this page at Etsy.
Do you see some connection to Whitbread Tankard, a pioneering U.K. keg bitter first released in 1957? Nicholas Redman, who wrote up Whitbread history, stated in The Story of Whitbread PLC 1742-1990:
From the mid 1950s onwards bottled beer began to give way to draught beer, with a clear trend downwards emerging by 1959. At just the right moment Whitbread’s had launched, in 1957, Whitbread Tankard, the Company’s first entry into the field of container beer. Delivered in pressurised metal containers connected to a small cylinder of CO2 it was ideal for use where sales were irregular because it had a much longer shelf life than cask beer, was always in prime condition and needed no expert attention. The new beer was a great success. ‘Whitbread Tankard’, wrote Colonel Whitbread in 1961, ‘has astounded us by its popularity and progress’.
Redman states “first entry”, but clearly the context is the domestic market. Also, he devotes little attention in the book to export markets in the 1930s, and the N.A.A.F.I. network as a customer is not mentioned.
Whitbread actually trademarked “Whitbread Tankard” in February 1956, per this record. Was the Whitbread draft beer served in the Palestine N.A.A.F.I.’s actually called Tankard? A 1939 Whitbread advert in the Palestine Post mentions Pale Ale, London Stout, and Double Brown, not Tankard draft.
But it’s hard to know. That kind of ad was primarily intended for the general public. In the N.A.A.F.I. canteen things might have been different. Even so, the elements were there to coin the name 20 years later for a consequential domestic release, both for London-based Whitbread, and British brewing generally, viz. the important (60s, 70s) genre of British beer that emerged, keg beer.
Note: series continues with Part VIII.
A further illustration of Whitbread awarding its Tankard prize can be seen here, also in 1937 in the Palestine Post.