British beer exports 1890 - 1932

I told you we'd be returning to British beer exports. Another thromise. I'm so good at thromising. That's why I'm such a good dad.

I've only a few holes to fill in the late 1930's and early 1940's (can't imagine there was much exporting going on then) and I'll have most of the 20th century up to the 1980's. Pretty impressive, eh? Not sure what I'll ever do with the information, other than bother you lot.

Here's the table:

British Beer exports 1890 - 1932 (standard barrels)
	1890	1900	1910	1913	1919	1920	1921	1922	1923	1924	1925	1926	1927	1928	1929	1930	1931	1932
USA	48,991	47,700	69,688
Egypt	6,591	18,597	20,600	20,530	10,408	9,796	11,619	11,305	8,592	8,971	9,840	10,760	10,510	10,659	12,571	14,603	14,409	11,627
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan									271	450
Cuba						14,261	2,254	3,151	3,258	4,148	2,665	2,410	1,070
Irish Free State									28,007	36,549	40,135	37,884	38,073	38,740	43,271	41,208	36,878	34,995
Malta & Gozo	20,390	22,932				12,849	13,219	16,406	16,825	20,390	22,932	23,036	18,822	22,256	19,982	15,011	14,335	6,262
British S. Africa	25,582	31,446	5,937	5,253	464	3,302
British W. Africa						10,640	6,830	5,193	2,480	1,497	2,250	4,000	5,530	6,373	8,298	8,176	6,627	8,854
British India	97,196	94,918	96,914	100,181	23,776	60,751	45,555	45,548	39,515	46,180	47,562	57,600	60,814	66,714	71,594	70,124	60,031	53,630
Straits Settlements				37,740	7,928	22,063	6,588	8,827	9,312	5,855	8,287	16,003	16,360	18,759	25,351	19,150	9,974	7,407
Ceylon				2,335	956	2,154
Australia				89,013	4,812	15,459	10,644	14,958	10,164	1,026
New Zealand				9,598	477	2,717
Australasia	147,014	96,785	90,416			18,176
Brit. West India Islands	26,882	18,794	21,726	21,901	5,161	13,688	6,517	9,510	12,190	12,064	12,544	14,484	15,144	18,865	19,979	19,436	14,364	12,546
Belgium						128,237	88,852	80,216	69,942	62,703	75,772	52,805	55,820	71,305	81,512	79,338	82,132	65,310
France						29,436	19,256	15,664	12,607	10,886	11,381	9,234	7,865	8,936	8,463	8,455	7,265	4,729
Other Countries	150,565	202,605	285,065	368,910	177,691	390,252	259,690	263,982	50,190	53,284	57,456	54,817	58,507	65,422	61,921	53,023	43,501	41,165
Total	502,921	510,845	590,346	655,461	231,673	390,252	259,690	263,982	263,353	264,003	290,824	283,033	287,445	328,029	352,942	328,524	289,516	246,525
Sources:
Brewers' Almanack 1928, page 115, Brewers' Journal 1921, page 24, Brewers' Journal 1923, page 26, Brewers' Journal 1925, page 27, Brewers' Journal 1927, page 28, Brewers' Journal 1928, page 29, Brewers' Journal 1929, page 30, Brewers' Journal 1931, page 34, Brewers' Journal 1933, page 41

A bit of a monster, I know. That's why I've included an image, too. For those who have narrow screens.

A few long-term trends are apparent. The total collapse of the trade to South Africa and Australia just after WW II is the most obvious. Unsurprisingly, there were no exports to the USA in the 1920's. Though you have to be suspicious about all that beer sent to Cuba in 1920. Could that really have been for the locals?

I was surprised that the Indian trade held up as well as it did.  It eventaully recovered to about 60-70% of the 1913 volume. That's proportionally better than average, as total export volumes were about halved.

I really wish I had the figures for pre-war expoprts to Belgium. There must have been some, though I suspect on nothing like the later scale.  From nowhere it became the biggest recipient of British beer. Many British brewers made beer specially for the Belgian market, usually brewed at something close to pre-war strength.

The British West Indies took relatively small but steady amounts of British beer. Longterm, it was one of the most stable export markets. Presumably because of the slow development of local breweries.

And finally one other significant new market devloped in the 1920's: the Irish Free State as it was sos quaintly called back then. Beer had always been sent there, it just hadn't counted as a foreign country. The impact of Irish independence was far greater on imports. Of the 1,349,515 barrels imported into the UK in 1927, all but 20,000 came from Ireland*. The vast majority of it was Guinness.




* Brewers' Almanack 1928, page 115.