Wednesday 7 August 2013

Beer production in 1892

Time for some more random beer statistics plucked from a 19th-century newspaper. Beer production is what we're looking at.

Here are the numbers:


Beer production in 1892
gallons barrels
Northern Germany 630,380,850 17,510,579
Bavaria 337,167,400 9,365,761
Wurtemburg 69,817,000 1,939,361
Duchy Baden 55,191,000 1,533,083
Alsace-Lorraine 16,703,000 463,972
Germany 1,051,664,000 29,212,889
Bohemia 110,000,000 3,055,556
Lower Austria (including Vienna) 44,000,000 1,222,222
Austria 302,025,000 8,389,583
Belgium 220,000,000 6,111,111
Denmark 52,492,000 1,458,111
Norway 37,673,000 1,046,472
Russia 64,427,000 1,789,639
Switzerland 26,101,000 725,028
Spain 22,550,000 626,389
Italy 3,029,000 84,139
Turkey 3,080,000 85,556
Roumania 220,000 6,111
Luxemberg 2,066,000 57,389
Servia 2,046,000 56,833
Greece 213,000 5,917
Continental Europe 3,036,000,000 84,333,333
USA 812,209,000 22,561,361
Japan 4,855,000 134,861
Australia 35,447,000 984,639
Algeria 550,000 15,278
Source:
Nottingham Evening Post - Wednesday 21 February 1894, page 2.

Notice one glaring absence? That's right, it's the UK. They only seem to have bothered with countries in Continental Europe. Annoyingly, I don't have numbers for the UK for 1892. These are the closest ones I have: 1891 31,927,053 barrels* and 1895 31,678,486 barrels**. So around 31 million barrels is a fair guess. Which means the UK was responsible for around 27% of Europe's beer production. And it had the largest beer production of anywhere in the world.


The biggest surprise to me is Belgium, which wasn't far behind Austria, a much larger and more populous country. And twice as much as Bohemia, not exactly a beer-free region and one with not that much smaller a population than Belgium.





* "Ireland Industrial and Agricultural", 1902, page 458.
** Brewers' Almanack 1928.

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