"Keg!" is coming along nicely. I've over 40,000 words and I've hardly even started on the personal memories and recipes. Of which there will be more than I expected. I'll have recipes from 12 breweries, in total. Somewhere around 50 or 60 recipes in all.
Let's get on with the extract.
On average, around a fifth of the UK barley harvest was used for malting. Even that wasn’t all dedicated to beer, as considerable quantities were also used for distilling. As we can see in table below.
Much malting was still being performed by brewers and distillers. A lot more than I would have expected. A massive 44% in 1971 and, despite declining a little, it was still 37% in 1979. And in absolute terms had actually increased.
I’m quite surprised to see just how much malt was used in distilling. In some years, such as 1973 and 1974, it was only slightly less than that used in brewing.
My guess is that the malt imports were almost all in the form of lager malt or other continental malt types. I can’t see UK brewers using foreign-made pale malt in their beer.
I’d love to know what the destination of the malt exports were. Presumably to countries which were brewing British-style beers.
What else was malt used for other than brewing and distilling? Well, an obvious one is malt vinegar. A fair bit must have been for that. And there are some foods – such as biscuits – which can contain malt.
| Malt production and usage (thousand tonnes) | |||||||||
| Year | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 |
| Malt Production: | |||||||||
| Brewer-Maltsters | 230 | 247 | 271 | 247 | 250 | 265 | 263 | 257 | 301 |
| Distiller-Maltsters | 270 | 284 | 291 | 300 | 225 | 245 | 256 | 321 | 291 |
| Sale-Maltsters | 640 | 745 | 810 | 915 | 912 | 885 | 877 | 984 | 1,019 |
| Total | 1,140 | 1,276 | 1,372 | 1,462 | 1,387 | 1,395 | 1,396 | 1,562 | 1,611 |
| Malt Imports | 31 | 27 | 49 | 78 | 35 | 30 | 46 | 42 | 61 |
| Malt Exports | 94 | 94 | 141 | 138 | 119 | 175 | 130 | 164 | 189 |
| Malt Requirements: | |||||||||
| For Brewing | 610 | 623 | 661 | 689 | 712 | 720 | 727 | 735 | 752 |
| For Distilling | 521 | 561 | 631 | 692 | 566 | 520 | 559 | 536 | 651 |
| Other purposes | 53 | 52 | 57 | 59 | 61 | 80 | 79 | 70 | 69 |
| Total | 1,184 | 1,236 | 1,349 | 1,440 | 1,339 | 1,320 | 1,365 | 1,341 | 1,472 |
| Source: | |||||||||
| The Brewers' Society UK Statistical Handbook 1980, page 26. | |||||||||
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12 comments:
As well as for vinegar, Horlicks and digestive biscuits, malt is very heavily used in the baking industry as a dough improver. It aids fermentation and gives the finished bread a more attractive colour.
Was the standard barrel system for tax purposes (36 imp. gallons at 1.055°) still applicable in the 1970s? Just wondering how the gross tonnage ‘For Brewing’ roughly translates into an amount of beer.
Iain,
yes, standard barrels were still in use in the 1970s.
I assume most of the barley was for livestock feed, which must say something about how the demand for beer was due to all of those loww gravity beers. The profit margin on livestock feed is about as low as you can get. In year of bumper crops, farmers are practically giving it away. I'm sure if farmers could sell more for malt they would.
I don’t know of any brewery in these islands who still does their own malt with the exception of Guinness.
Oscar
Anonymous,
some barley was also for human consumption in the form of pearl barley. My mun used to put it in soup and stew.
Pearl barley lamb stew is delicious.
Pearl barley is the signature ingredient in Scotch broth. I bet the number of people regularly making their own soup in the 70s was vastly greater than it is today.
Barley for cordials such as Robinson's barley water and Vimto.
Hovis proprietary Granary flour seems to have included malted barley flour. I'm not sure if your regular 70's Hovis bread was made using Granary but since it was pretty much the only brown bread in the 70's would be interesting to know, if so, how much barley was used by the Hovis folks.
We still make most of our own soups.
Osvar
We are the Ovalteenies, happy girls and boys......
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