British beer exports 1862 - 1872

It's funny the places you find evidence. Like this about what type of beer was being exported.

What kicked everything off was finding figures for British beer exports in the Brewers' Guardian. I collect all sorts of statitics, but especially stuff like this that show how much British beer was being exported to various parts of the globe.

They tell me a few things directly. Like that British exports to the USA were rising sharply, those to Australia in decline, those to the West Indies and India fairly stable. Except for a blip in 1870 when considerably more beer was shipped to India.

But because the figures include value as well as volume, there's other information than can be indirectly gleaned. Why not see how much the beer exported to various locations cost per barrel. It's easy enough to work out.

I know from other sources that the majority of beer shipped to the West Indies was either Stout or Strong Ale. Which means that the average price per barrel should be relatively high. The same should also be true for Australia, where a lot of stronger beers were shipped. I'd expect a list in terms of the average price to look like this, in descending order:

West Indies
Australia
USA
India

British beer exports 1862 - 1872
	1862		1863		1864
	barrels	declared value	barrels	declared value	barrels	declared value
India	159,140	£445,801	152,588	£429,564	165,037	£498,449
Australia	153,145	£563,907	166,418	£645,716	124,556	£506,691
British West Indies	21,014	£75,220	22,100	£79,393	26,887	£104,037
United States of America	7,780	£31,446	7,644	£33,053	9,830	£43,681
Other countries	123,748	£479,280	142,881	£558,512	164,176	£670,304
Total	464,827	£1,595,654	491,631	£1,746,238	490,486	£1,823,162
	1870		1871		1872
	barrels	declared value	barrels	declared value	barrels	declared value
India	216,663	£576,960	161,859	£492,885	167,597	£522,593
Australia	89,808	£369,741	80,511	£324,061	88,184	£359,701
British West Indies	23,402	£89,007	28,013	£106,243	27,199	£102,491
United States of America	29,512	£148,409	36,402	£181,195	44,360	£223,579
Other countries	161,814	£697,556	176,335	£749,389	194,616	£876,219
Total	521,199	£1,881,673	483,120	£1,853,773	521,956	£2,084,583
Sources:
"Sessional Papers, House of Lords, Vol. VII, Accounts and Papers", 1864, pages 20-21
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 3, 1873, page 13
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 3, 1873, page 14

Why India last? Because I know much of the beer sent there was Porter, which was relatively cheap. The figures bear this out. The average price of the beer sent to India was between 53 and 62 shillings per barrel. No way most of that could be IPA. Because even in Britain, a barrel of IPA cost 60 shillings a barrel:

Allsopp price list from 1871

You can see my other predictions were a bit out. The most expensive beer was sent to the USA, followed by Australia with the West Indies only in third place:

British beer exports price per barrel 1862 - 1872
	1862	1863	1864	1870	1871	1872
India	56.03	56.30	60.40	53.26	60.90	62.36
Australia	73.64	77.60	81.36	82.34	80.50	81.58
British West Indies	71.59	71.85	77.39	76.07	75.85	75.36
United States of America	80.84	86.48	88.87	100.58	99.55	100.80
Other countries	77.46	78.18	81.66	86.22	85.00	90.05
Average	68.66	71.04	74.34	72.21	76.74	79.88
Sources:
"Sessional Papers, House of Lords, Vol. VII, Accounts and Papers", 1864, pages 20-21
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 3, 1873, page 13
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 3, 1873, page 14

What was being sent to the USA that was so expensive?

Not sure why the average price per barrel generally increased between 1862 and 1872. Any suggestions?