Beer output by Scottish region in 1849

Part two of this exciting series, looking at the distribution of beers production around the United Kingdom in 1849. Wow. That was a mouthful. I'd best get onto those tasty tables before you choke.

You'll note that brewing was even more concentrated in Scotland than it was in England. Almost half of Scottish beer was brewed in Edinburgh. Surprising, because Glasgow had about double the population (Edinburgh 160,300, Glasgow 329,100 in 1851). Why was so little beer brewed in Glasgow? Under 30,000 barrels. That's just 27 pints per person per annum. Was it water or tradition that made Edinburgh Scotland's brewing capital?

Also worth remarking upon is the minimal amount of beer brewed in the Highlands. Just in case you needed to be reminded how unrealistic are the claims that Scottish brewers used peat-kilned malt, or peat-infused water. Maybe there was the odd tiny, local brewery where this was true. But no-one was going to hump peat for fuel to the coal-rich lowloads, where the barley was grown and malted. It makes no sense.

Knowing the renown of Edinburgh Ale, I'm shocked how relatively little beer was brewed there. More of that later, when I do some contextualising.

Here are the Scottish figures:

Estimated beer output in Scotland, year ending October 1849
	bushels malt consumed by each class		estimated output (barrels)
Collections	Brewers	Victuallers	Brewers	Victuallers	total	% of output
Aberdeen	49,587	3,623	24,793.5	1,811.5	26,605.0	6.10%
Argyle, N.			0.0	0.0	0.0	0.00%
Argyle, S.			0.0	0.0	0.0	0.00%
Ayr	54,447	2,022	27,223.5	1,011.0	28,234.5	6.48%
Caithness	456	2,459	228.0	1,229.5	1,457.5	0.33%
Dumfries	20,087		10,043.5	0.0	10,043.5	2.30%
Elgin	21,510	668	10,755.0	334.0	11,089.0	2.54%
Glasgow	59,451		29,725.5	0.0	29,725.5	6.82%
Hadding'n	62,402	11,773	31,201.0	5,886.5	37,087.5	8.51%
Inverness	3,337	2,423	1,668.5	1,211.5	2,880.0	0.66%
Linlithgow	13,923	7,209	6,961.5	3,604.5	10,566.0	2.42%
Montrose	15,702	35,408	7,851.0	17,704.0	25,555.0	5.86%
Perth		26,744	0.0	13,372.0	13,372.0	3.07%
Stirling	61,099	14,413	30,549.5	7,206.5	37,756.0	8.66%
Edinburgh	402,842		201,421.0	0.0	201,421.0	46.22%
Paisley	included in Glasgow returns		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.00%
Greenock	included in Glasgow returns		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.00%
total	764,843	106,742	382,421.5	53,371.0	435,792.5	100.00%
Source:
"Statistics of British commerce" by Braithwaite Poole, 1852, page 5.

Contextualisation time. Let's look at Britain's major brewing centre of the period: London. In the table below, you'll see that the largest London brewer, Barclay Perkins, produced almost as much beer as the whole of Scotland.

Output of largest London brewers (barrels)
	1849
Barclay Perkins	395,820
Whitbread	182,513
Truman, Hanbury	358,997
Reid	205,203
total	1,144,382
Source:
The British Brewing Industry, 1830-1980 T. R. Gourvish and R.G. Wilson, pages 610-611

Next it's the turn of Ireland. What do you think we'll find there?