Tax, gravity and production of UK beer 1880-1945

I have a way with snappy titles, don't I? I've just been browsing my tables of statistics and chanced upon this one. I lead such an interesting life. Sometimes I think numbers are my only real friends. Usually when that voice in my head is saying "Kill them all!".

The Brewers' Almanack is a delight for numbers freaks like me. For normal people, it's just a dull collection of statistics and legislation. I could sit and read it all day. Most of the stuff I present here comes from the 1928 edition. It's the first one I acquired, a birthday present from Henry (thanks Henry).

The full table goes back to 1643, when the first tax was imposed on beer. As usual, the tax was to pay for a war. The English Civil War. That's the sort of saddoe I am. I know the tax on, and the price of a pint of, beer back to 1643. I knew it would come in useful one day. That day is today.

I've listed both Standard and Bulk Barrels. Bulk Barrels are the actual number of physical barrels of beer. A Standard Barrel, which was the basis for taxation, was 36 gallons of beer at 1055. Before WW I, there was little difference between the two, as average OG was close to 1055. You can find a longer explanation here.

1915. That's the year when British beer became highly taxed. Beer duty was trebled. Tax went from being 10-13% of the retail price of a pint to 30%. You can see the effect this had beer gravity.

You'll not the peak in beer tax came a couple of years after WW I and WW II had finished. 1921 and 1949, to be precise. During the 1950's, tax on beer actually went down. Not something that happens often. It wasn't until 1968 that it was raised above the 1949 level.

The effect of WW I was to raise beer tax from 7s 9d a standard barrel to 25s (93d to 300d). But the tax increases in the immediate postwar years were even more extreme, hitting a peak of 100s in 1921. The level tax eventually settled to (80s a barrel) was roughly 10 times higher than in 1914.

At the beginning of WW II, tax was still at 80s per standard barrel. By 1945, it was 286s 5.5d., or about 3.5 times higher. The 1949 peak of 364s 4.5d was 4.5 times higher than the 1939 level. The 321s per barrel tax remained at throughout the 1950's was about four times the prewar level.

After 1951, the average gravity hovered between a half point above or below 1037 for 30 years.