Monday 14 May 2012

Average OG of British beer exports 1934 -1949

I'm still on my number jag. Must be something to do with spring. Old man's fancy turning and all that. I've some lovely big fat ones for you. Numbers, I mean.

Standard barrels can be a real pain in the arse. Especially when average gravity moved far away from 1055º. Which meant the difference between standard and bulk barrel numbers becomes greater and less predictable. Most of the export figures I have are in standard barrels. So they relate poorly to the actual amount of beer shipped.

But there is an upside. At least when you get figures in both standard and bulk barrels. Because then you can calculate the average OG. As a standard barrel is 36 gallons with an OG of 1055º, all you need to do is multiply the standard barrels by 55, divide by the number of bulk barrels and add 1000. Bingo: average OG.

The 1955 Brewers' Almanack handily gives the export figures in both bulk and standard barrels for the years 1934 to 1949. Letting me calculate the average export OG. And, as I have the figures for the average OG of beer sold in the UK, I can see just how much stronger export beer was.

One point immediately jumps out a pokes a stick in my eye: the average OG of export beer in the years 1934 to 1939 is very close to the average OG of domestic beer in 1914, which was 1052.8º*. Which confirms something I've long suspected: beer for export continued to be brewed at pre-war strengths. It makes sense. It's what the customers were used to and expected. And the massive increase in beer duty (up from 7s 9d per standard barrel in 1914 to 100s per standard barrel in 1921** - a fourteen-fold increase) didn't apply to exported beer.

You can see how domestic beer averaged about 10 points weaker right through the 1930's. Until WW II intervened and messed things up again.


Average OG of British beer exports 1934 -1949

bulk barrels standard barrels average OG exports average OG UK difference
1934 216,293 213,813 1054.37 1040.99 13.38
1935 232,839 224,087 1052.93 1041.06 11.87
1936 325,058 311,663 1052.73 1041.02 11.71
1937 340,757 329,498 1053.18 1041.10 12.08
1938 281,284 271,114 1053.01 1041.02 11.99
1939 283,974 274,272 1053.12 1040.93 12.19
1940 266,766 239,850 1049.45 1040.62 8.83
1941 225,552 191,939 1046.80 1038.51 8.29
1942 94,796 79,364 1046.05 1035.53 10.52
1943 107,019 85,954 1044.17 1034.34 9.83
1944 77,597 63,606 1045.08 1034.63 10.45
1945 130,443 101,058 1042.61 1034.54 8.07
1946 187,418 150,099 1044.05 1034.72 9.33
1947 109,680 85,660 1042.95 1032.59 10.36
1948 205,098 179,120 1048.03 1032.66 15.37
1949 254,147 226,215 1048.96 1033.43 15.53
Sources:
Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 57
Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50

That was fun. We must do it again soon.






* Brewers' Journal 1921, page 246.
** 1928 Brewers' Almanack

2 comments:

Tom said...

Hi Ron, do you have any more information/data on Boddingtons?

Cheers

Ron Pattinson said...

Tom, some.