Wednesday 7 March 2012

Another look at Scottish hopping

I'm always looking for new ways to analyse Scottish hopping rates. This is, I think, one of the best yet. Thank Brewer's Almanack and its many tables.

Because one lists brewing materials used and the number of barrels brewed each year. Which means I can easily work out the average hopping rate of beer brewed in the UK. Pretty handy, eh? Then there's William Younger. Their brewing records have a similar table. Combine the two and what do you get? Numbers fun.

It seems like a pretty fair comparison to me. How did Younger's hop usage stack up against the UK in general? I'll be honest, the results aren't very clear. Then there's a caveat about the numbers themselves. The dry hops are missing for some breweries in the UK figures. While they are included in the Younger's ones. Getting Confused? It gets worse. Younger's records have three different figures for the amount of beer brewed: barrels in the tun, barrels cleansed and excise barrels. Which to use? Because the barrels brewed in the UK figures is, I'm pretty sure, the number of barrels on which duty was charged. Or excise barrels. Whereas the materials are those used to brew the beer before any losses. That is, a larger number of barrels. So the real average quantity of hops per barrel would be lower. Because some of the hops would have been in the barrels lost during production.

On the face of, I should use the number of excise barrels. But, to be on the safe side, I've included the figures for both excise barrels and barrels in tun (i.e. number of barrels actually brewed). Feel free to use which ever set you prefer.


Brewing materials and hopping rates 1914 - 1950
UK Younger
year grains (qtrs) sugar (qtrs) total (qtrs) hops (lbs) barrels hops lbs/barrel hops lbs/qtr hops lbs/barrel (in tuns) hops lbs/barrel (excise) hops lbs/qtr
1914 7,099,421 1,639,855 8,739,276 62,655,376 36,162,273 1.73 7.17 1.30 1.40 5.95
1920 5,606,089 1,067,796 6,673,884 56,351,680 34,776,258 1.62 8.44
1922 4,418,298 811,034 5,229,332 44,632,672 27,815,249 1.60 8.54 1.45 1.59 6.60
1924 4,048,132 849,885 4,898,017 39,247,936 25,927,783 1.51 8.01 1.50 1.63 6.83
1926 3,932,891 916,457 4,849,348 39,802,000 25,987,830 1.53 8.21
1928 3,790,826 919,135 4,709,961 37,034,144 24,981,731 1.48 7.86
1930 3,622,839 917,619 4,540,458 34,416,368 24,488,629 1.41 7.58
1931 3,276,937 849,082 4,126,019 31,069,472 22,561,497 1.38 7.53 1.35 1.48 6.46
1932 2,553,740 688,563 3,242,303 24,593,744 18,864,711 1.30 7.59
1933 2,591,074 689,983 3,281,056 24,961,216 18,931,185 1.32 7.61 1.30 1.48 6.75
1934 2,851,752 771,614 3,623,366 26,142,928 20,378,879 1.28 7.22 1.04 1.27 5.49
1935 3,014,416 815,963 3,830,379 27,859,328 21,598,179 1.29 7.27
1936 3,083,263 852,709 3,935,972 28,929,600 22,207,859 1.30 7.35
1937 3,242,085 917,943 4,160,028 30,306,304 23,608,658 1.28 7.29
1938 3,360,389 947,387 4,307,776 31,118,752 24,339,360 1.28 7.22
1939 3,543,161 993,239 4,536,400 32,000,080 25,691,217 1.25 7.05
1940 3,409,779 766,388 4,176,167 29,737,344 24,925,704 1.19 7.12 0.80 0.85 4.93
1941 3,749,022 698,821 4,447,843 28,151,648 28,170,582 1.00 6.33
1942 3,784,318 705,711 4,490,029 24,976,784 29,584,656 0.84 5.56
1943 3,855,366 700,287 4,555,652 25,937,968 29,811,321 0.87 5.69
1944 4,001,824 729,324 4,731,148 27,316,800 31,380,684 0.87 5.77
1945 4,004,332 892,032 4,896,364 27,420,064 31,990,334 0.86 5.60
1946 3,749,165 895,011 4,644,176 25,334,064 31,066,950 0.82 5.46
1947 3,387,187 800,593 4,187,780 24,389,008 30,103,180 0.81 5.82
1948 3,392,205 721,779 4,113,984 25,924,640 28,813,725 0.90 6.30
1949 3,217,710 651,606 3,869,316 26,113,696 26,744,457 0.98 6.75
1950 3,201,590 642,939 3,844,529 26,093,648 25,339,062 1.03 6.79 0.83 1.18 5.12
Sources:
William Younger brewing records documents WY/6/1/2/45, WY/6/1/2/58, WY/6/1/2/63, WY/6/1/2/68, WY/6/1/2/70, WY/6/1/2/76 and WY/6/1/2/88 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive
1953 Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 62


Between 1922 and 1934, Younger's average hopping rate is very close to the national average. In 1914 and 1940, however, it's a fair bit lower. For 1950, it depends on which barrelage figure you pick. One's about 20% less, the other about 15% more.

Despite the problems with the numbers, it would seem difficult to claim that Younger used a much smaller quantity of hops in its beers than the average for the UK. Remember that the averages include the large Burton brewers who between them would have been responsible for several million barrels. I can't imagine they were hopping at the average rate.

Overall, slightly negative evidence. By which I mean, there's nothing in there to back up the assertion that Scottish brewers used significantly smaller quantities of hops than English brewers.

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