Monday 23 July 2018

Number of UK breweries by size in 1889

One of the things I like most about old brewing trade magazines are the statistics. as you're probably aware if you've been reading this blog for more than five minutes.

There were still an awful lot of breweries in the UK in 1889, though the number was falling quite quickly, by a few hundred every year in the 1880s.

The vast majority were tiny: almost 85% produced fewer than 1,000 standard barrels a year. And most were brewing well under 1,000 barrels. According to my calculations, around 200 barrels on average. Most were pub breweries, which were still very common in some parts of the country, for example the Black country and some of Yorkshire.

Only 34 breweries produced more than 100,000 barrels and only 13 more than 250,000 barrels. That last group was dominated by London and Burton breweries. There was one exception to that. The biggest of them all was Guinness in Dublin. Which is one of the breweries producing over 1 million barrels a year, along with Bass.

I've derived some more fascinating stuff from these numbers. There's something for you to look forward to.

Breweries, brewers licences and duty in 1889
standard barrels brewed no. of licences issued malt & corn sugar licence and beer duty paid £ s. d.
Under 1,000 10,745 173,745,474 4,169,363 624,651 4 6
1,000 and under 10,000 1,479 417,818,604 39,255,092 1,696,936 6 9
10,000 ,, 20,000 173 292,992,588 28,475,977 1,208,450 17 2
20,000 ,, 30,000 108 196,808,640 22,169,185 825,118 6 10
30,000 ,, 50,000 69 196,776,174 21,642,129 829,915 18 9
50,000 ,, 100,000 48 235,197,816 29,098,953 1,005,725 10 0
100,000 ,, 150,000 13 114,611,700 11,787,908 481,871 8 9
150,000 ,, 200,000 5 64,293,936 5,363,026 264,639 1 3
100,000 ,, 250,000 3 50,602,356 4,164,597 204,895 16 3
250,000 ,, 300,000 3 53,940,222 10,621,244 255,527 13 9
300,000 ,, 350,000 1 22,595,664 3,450,563 101,521 0 0
350,000 ,, 400,000 3 90,048,672 7,043,171 361,118 12 6
400,000 ,, 450,000 1 30,874,368 5,932,856 139,523 16 3
450,000 ,, 500,000 1 40,291,440 1,337,408 153,039 1 6
500,000 ,, 550,000 1 36,925,224 5,876,304 166,904 8 9
550,000 ,, 600,000 1 50,563,212 973,297 185,244 10 0
600,000 ,, 1,000,000   
1,000,000 and over 2 214,186,140 1,416,548 818,087 5 0
Total 12,756 2,282,276,850 202,800,021 9,323,170 19 0
Source:
"The Brewers' Guardian 1890", 1890, page 322.

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