Friday 20 November 2020

Raw material costs in WW II

There was a big increase in the price of both malt and hops, unsurprisingly, over the course of the war. If Barclay Perkins is typical, this had the effect of raising the percentage of the cost of raw materials relative to the retail price.

In 1939, before the war began, the cost of the malt, adjunct and sugar used in the brewing of XX came to just over 7% of the retail price. Especially considering that the tax paid was slightly over 2d per pint. Or around a third of the 6d public bar price.

The “XX share” column is there because the brew was a parti-gyle with X, Barclay Perkins Ordinary Mild. There was rather more of that brewed than XX, hence the latter’s share is only around a third of the total.

The situation was very different in 1945. The share of raw materials had more than doubled to just over 15%. While the tax paid had leapt to 7.5d per pint – almost two-thirds of the price public bar punters paid.  Ever since, a huge percentage of the retail price of beer in the UK has been made up of tax. Whereas before WW I tax, was only around 10% of the price. Those lucky Edwardians.


21st June 1939 Barclay Perkins XX
malt.hops qtrs/cwts price total XX share
amber malt 4 51.5 206 79.96
crystal malt 6 46.5 279 108.30
Californian pale malt 19 47 893 346.63
Hama pale malt 10 42.5 425 164.97
mild malt 33 50 1650 640.47
SA malt 17 49 833 323.34
maize 17 36 612 237.55
No. 3 invert sugar 15 42 630 244.54
MK Fuggles 1938 2.36 196 462 179.33
MK Fuggles 1938 2.32 197 457.32 177.51
MK Fuggles 1937 2.38 181 431.49 167.49
total     6878.81 2670.09
OG 1044.8      
barrels brewed 260.25      
cost per pint 0.43      
retail price per pint (d) 6      
% raw materials 7.12%      
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/623.


13th July 1945 Barclay Perkins XX
malt.hops qtrs/cwts price total XX share
amber malt 4 161 644 315.64
crystal malt 6 146 876 429.35
SA malt 17 142 2414 1183.15
mild malt 33 142 4686 2296.71
PA malt 17 152 2584 1266.47
flaked barley 17 110 1870 916.53
No. 3 invert sugar 15 99 1485 727.83
MK Fuggles 1943 0.61 385 233.75 114.57
MK Fuggles 1943 0.78 385 299.06 146.58
MK Fuggles 1941 0.78 333 258.67 126.78
total     15350.48 7523.61
OG 1035.4      
barrels brewed 172.75      
cost per pint 1.81      
retail price per pint (d) 12      
% raw materials 15.12%      
Source:
Barclay Perkins Circular Letters held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/521/1.

 

 

 

1 comment:

Michael Foster said...

I'd love to see a chart showing the share of taxes in retail beer price from pre WW2 to today. I imagine a hockey stick.