Lager Beers in 1909

You probably realise by now how fascinated I am by Lager. Especially oldie-timey Lager.

The following passage from the Journal of the Institute of Brewing explains the different types of Lager at the start of the 20th century. It breaks them down by region and strength. Rather surprisingly, along with Bohemia, Bavaria and Vienna, the USA is also included. Which is probably fair enough, now I think about it.

The strength types are a bit odd, as it doesn't seem to include Bock. Or, at least, to lump it in with Export.

Our attention must now be directed to the principal subject of this evening's paper: Lager Beers ("Lager Biere"). Of these there are four recognised types :—Bohemian, Vienna, Bavarian, and American. As a general rule, three varieties of each are brewed: Light, Ordinary or Summer Lager, and Export. The exports are all brewed considerably stronger and contain more alcohol. All the types vary a good deal in colour, flavour, palate-fulness, amount of hops, acidity and alcohol. For example :—

1. Bavarian and Munich beers possess a light to dark-brown shade of colour, are lightly hopped, and are characterised by their palate fulness, sweet taste and malt flavour. Their gravities vary from 12.5° to 15.0° B. in the Light, and from 15.0° to 18.0° B. in the Export beers.

2. The Bohemian are light-yellow, as in the case of the Pilsener, to a peculiar greenish-yellow colour. They taste somewhat sharp, dry and wine-like, but with a prevailing bitter of hops as opposed to the lightly-hopped Bavarians. Their gravities vary from 10.5° to 11.5° B. for the Light, and from 11.0° to 12.8° B. for the Heavy.

3. The Vienna Lagers come somewhere midway between the Bavarian and Bohemian, especially as regards colour, hops, and taste. The gravities vary from 10.5° to 13.5° B. in the Light, and from 13.5° to 15.5° B. for the Heavy and Export beers. The larger amount of the common beer of Vienna is brewed at a gravity of 13.5° B.

4. The American Lagers generally follow the German rather than the Austrian types, yet differ considerably in the many American cities.
"Lager Beers" by James Grant in Journal of the Institute of Brewing Volume 15, Issue 3, May 1909, page 379.

It's odd that they state American beers were mostly of the German type. Surely most were of the Bohemian type, generally being very pale. There aren't any details with regard to strength, unfortunately. 

European beers in 1929

Not much this time. Just a table of analyses.

It's in the Wahls' book, but they had borrowed them from someone else:

"Composition of various European beers, according to Prof. Dr. H. Luers, Munich, in "Grafe Handbuch Der Organischen Warenkunde", Volume III, 1929."

It's mostly Bavarian breweries, speiced with a few exotics from Prague and Britain:

European beers in 1929
Year	Brewer	Town	country	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	OG Plato
1929	Pschorr	Munich	Germany	Dunkles	1054.26	1019.2	4.53	64.61%	13.43
1929	Hofbrau	Munich	Germany	Dunkles	1057.58	1020.2	4.75	64.92%	14.21
1929	Weihenstephan	Freising	Germany	Dunkles	1057.16	1017.2	5.16	69.91%	14.11
1929	Spaten	Munich	Germany	Dunkles	1053.83	1021.4	4.19	60.25%	13.33
1929	Tucher	Nuernberg	Germany	Dunkles	1053.45	1017.8	4.59	66.70%	13.24
1929	Kulmbacher Sandlerbraeu	Kulmbach	Germany	Dunkles	1062.61	1015.8	6.05	74.76%	15.38
1929	Dortmunder Union	Dortmund	Germany	Export	1055.15	1012	5.55	78.24%	13.64
1929	Schultheiss brauerei	Berlin	Germany	Maerzenbler	1053.75	1012.3	5.09	77.12%	13.31
1929	Erste Pilsener Actienbrauerei	Pilsen	Czech Republic	Pilsener	1046.99	1011.6	4.56	75.32%	11.71
1929	Burgerliches Brauhaus	Pilsen	Czech Republic	Pilsener Urquell	1048.17	1013.4	4.51	72.18%	11.99
1929	Dreher	Kleinschwechat	Austria	Wiener Maerzenbier	1058.95	1016.9	5.44	71.33%	14.53
1929	Unknown	Berlin	Germany	Berliner Weissbier	1036.68	1007.1	3.84	80.64%	9.23
1929	Barclay Perkins	London	UK	Porter	1087.61	1022.9	8.40	73.86%	21.06
1929	Bass	Burton	UK	Pale Ale	1060.80	1018.8	6.28	69.08%	14.96
Source:
Beer from the Expert's Viewpoint by Arnold Spencer Wahl and Robert Wahl, 1937, page 166.

I've no idea what that Barclay Perkins beer is. Obviously some sort of Stout. But it doesn't match any they brewed in the 1920's: BBS Ex had an OG of 1079º and IBS Ex 1103º*. I suspect the analysis is really from before WW I.

The Bass Pale Ale has an OG that looks right for the export version, but the FG looks far too high. Don't quite understand that one.

Moving on to the Munich beers, they still have the high OG and poor attenuation of the 19th century.

The Kulmbcher has a surprisingly high gravity  - though didn't we just read something saying it had a bock-like OG? - and reasonable attenuation leaving quite an alcoholic beer.

The Pilseners look . . . very much like modern Pilsner Urquell in terms of OG and ABV. It seems a very unchaging beer in terms of strength. More so than any other individual beer I can think of.

Told you there wasn't much this time. That's it.





* Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/614.

Price of Milk in Hungary

More results of my supermarket dash through the newspaper archives.

There were food shortages in Britain in WW I, but nothing like those in Germany and Austria.

"Price of Milk in Hungary.
The introduction of maximum prices for milk by the authorities Buda Pest have excited much apprehension in Vienna. The official price for a litre bottle of milk in Buda Pest is 56 hellers (5.6 pence), which is eight hellers more than the present prices in Vienna.

The maximum price in the Hungarian capital represents an advance of ten hellers (a penny), and is avowedly made to stimulate production and increase consignments of milk to the city. Of the 600,000 litres of milk daily consumed in Vienna, at least one-sixth comes from Hungary, consequently the Viennese fear that the higher prices there will tend to divert this milk to Buda Pest.

The situation is the more critical just now as the milk contracts with the farmers and peasants are made for a year from April 1, and agents from both capitals will be competing to secure new contracts.

According to Bohemian papers, Austria is about prohibit the expert of beer in the interests of the home consumers. Such breweries, however, as during the years 1911-12 and 1912-13 sent beer abroad to neutral European countries and to Austria's Allies, may still export, but those who supplied only enemy countries and America will be excluded.

This new prohibition will affect chiefly, and indeed almost exclusively, the Pilsener breweries, which export a large proportion of their output, while the other Austrian breweries have only 6 per cent. of the total exports.

The Pilsener breweries will be permitted to export 30 per cent. of their production, which is now only 40 per cent. of the original quantity, so that the new exports will amount to 12 per cent. of the output of normal years.

At Lemberg the High Court has forbidden the circulation of two Hebrew’ prayer-books, the "Sider Beis Jacob,” published in 1904, and another published in 1907, on the ground that they contain high treason. The Socialist press is asking why it took all these years for the authorities to find out the treasonable character the books.

Wood of all kinds is becoming very scarce and very dear in Austria. Ordinary soft woods have doubled in price, and fire wood has gone up nearly as much. Enormous quantities of wood have been used for military purposes, such as buildings, barracks, and hospitals, and even more in the reconstruction of the towns and villages destroyed in the war zone."
Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough - Thursday 30 March 1916, page 6.

It's odd how they didn't allow breweries who had exported to the Allies to export beer. Though I'm more surprised that they were exporting beer at all. The most impressive statistic is that Pilsner breweries were responsible for 94% of Austrian beer exports.

I'm really happy to find that figure for beer production. Down to just 40% of its pre-war level. Let's see how that compares with the situation in the UK:

Summary of changes in WW I
	Duty		Standard barrels	Bulk barrels	Average OG	Average price
	s.	d.			England & Wales	per pint
1914	7	9	36,057,913	37,558,767	1051.69	3d.
1915	23	0	33,099,000	34,736,000	1051.16	3d.
1916	23	0	30,292,000	32,110,000	1050.49	3d.
1917	24	0	26,626,000	30,163,000	1047.01	4d
1918	25	0	13,816,000	19,085,000	1038.25	4.5d
1919	50	0	12,925,000	23,264,000	1029.35	5d.
1920	79	0	25,115,000	35,047,000	1038.57	6d.
Sources:
The Brewers' Almanack 1928 pages 100 and 110.

Beer output fell between 1914 and 1916, but not by a ridiculous amount. Especially in terms of bulk barrels, i.e. the actual amount of beer. Though the standard barrel number indicates the reduction in materials used.

Drop in beer output
period	standard barrels	bulk barrels
1914 to 1916	15.99%	14.51%
1914 to 1917	26.16%	19.69%

But things quickly got much worse in Bohemia:

"ENEMY'S FOOD CRISIS.
HOW ROUMANIAN INTERVENTION HAS REDUCED SUPPLIES.
The stoppage of Roumanian supplies has already caused an aggravation of the food shortage troubles both in Germany and Austria.

In Germany the allowance of butter per person has been reduced to eighty grammes (less than three ounces) per week. From the end of September there will be three meatless days per week instead of two.

Austria has already introduced three meatless days instead of two. The brewing beer will stopped in Austria. This will strike a destructive blow to the remaining prosperity of Pilsen. Bread rations will have to be reduced Germany and Austria."
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser - Wednesday 20 September 1916, page 1.

Brewing ground to a complete halt:

"All breweries in the beer producing town of Pilsen, Bohemia, have been closed owing to lack of supplies."
Newcastle Journal - Saturday 23 September 1916, page 4.

Beer might have ended up pretty thin and watery in Britain, but at least there was beer.

Austrian beer output by º Balling in 1888

Another round of Austro-Hungarian statistics. I'm enjoying them, even if you aren't.

Austro-Hungarian Empire was a very diverse place containing dozens of nationalities and languages. This is reflected in the beer industry. The quantity of beer brewed and its strength were very divergent. Luckily detailed figures, broken down by region, are available. What they make clear is that the types of beer brewed in different parts of the empire varied hugely. It would cruel not to share them with you. I suppose you can guess what's coming: lots more tables.

Just so you know where everywhere is.

This is a little embarrassing. I don't have the source of these figures. I collected them a while ago and for some reason didn't note down where I'd found them. I've very similar numbers for slightly different years and I'm pretty sure these ones are accurate. I'll try not to let it happen again.

I've selected two groups of Austrian regions. Basically because including all of them would make the table too big. The nine regions I've picked were responsible for 12,594,228  hl of the 13,142,429 hl total for the whole empire. That's 96%. The amounts brewed in some regions were tiny - little more than a big brewpub could turn out in a year. They aren't statistically significant and untidy up the tables to no purpose.

But first I will show you some figures forthe whole empire. I was going to entitle it beer consumption per head. Then I realsied it was really beer output per head. Not really the same thing. They vary from pretty much nothing to Bavaria-like levels, with Salzburg, right on the border with Bavaria coming top.

Here's the table:

Beer output per head (litres)
Carinthia	40.5
Upper Austria	125
Salzburg	183
Styria	54
Tirol und Vorarlberg	29
Lower Austria	112
Galicia	12
Silesia	54
Bohemia	98
Moravia	50.5
Carniola	10
Bukovina	10
Kustenland	0.2
Hungary and Siebenbergen	3
Croatia and Slavonia	1
Military border	3
Average 1888	35
Average 1887	33

You can see that beer production was very much concentrated in Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia. Not such a huge surprise, that. They're still the areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire with the most brewing activity.

On to the next table. I'm starting with the three provinces which produced the most beer: Lower Austria, Bohemia and Moravia. The brewed 9,181,850 hl between, 70% of the total. Bohemia alone brewed more than 40%.

Austrian Beer output by º Balling in 1888 (hl)
º Balling	Lower Austria	%	Bohemia	%	Moravia	%	Total	%
6	0		0		0		2,233	0.02%
7	0		0		0		54	0.000%
8	0		0		0		0	0.00%
9	3,506	0.13%	180,274	3.29%	7,572	0.70%	278,431	2.12%
10	1,899,015	72.77%	4,103,117	74.78%	623,265	57.44%	7,226,651	54.99%
11	75,280	2.88%	727,084	13.25%	257,111	23.70%	1,924,339	14.64%
12	51,558	1.98%	448,982	8.18%	177,070	16.32%	2,126,679	16.18%
13	484,855	18.58%	19,866	0.36%	17,556	1.62%	1,173,621	8.93%
14	43,367	1.66%	4,299	0.08%	1,282	0.12%	254,212	1.93%
15	51,113	1.96%	1,564	0.03%	814	0.08%	148,318	1.13%
16	1,050	0.04%	1,456	0.03%	406	0.04%	4,973	0.04%
17	0		80	0.001%	0		1,497	0.01%
18	0		0		0		441	0.003%
19	0		200	0.004%	0		200	0.002%
20	0		108	0.002%	0		732	0.01%
22	0		0		0		48	0.00%
total	2,609,744	19.86%	5,487,030	41.75%	1,085,076	8.26%	13,142,429
active breweries	76	3.91%	772	39.75%	161	8.29%	1942
inactive breweries	12	4.14%	126	43.45%	37	12.76%	290
average output per brewery	34,339		7,108		6,740		6,767

One thing is immediately obvious: the vast majority of the beer brewed in these provinces was 10º. What is called Výčepní Pivo today. It comes to 6,625,397, which is 72% of all the beer they brewed. But what I find equally interesting is that it's 92% of all the 10º brewed in the empire. Put simply, lots of 10º was brewed in these three provinces and almost none anywherre else. In Bohemia and Moravia most of the rest was 11º and 12º. Not so surprising. Though I would have expected rather more in Bohemia. Combined they come to 21% of Bohemia's total. Odd because Ležák - which is what these categories are - is the type of beer that made Pilsen and Budweis world famous. Just 0.5% of the beer brewed in Bohemia and 2% of that in Moravia was 13º or higher  (modern Speciální Pivo). Very little at all - fewer than 50,000 hl for the two combined.

In Lower Austria, it was very different. Not a great deal of 11º and 12º was brewed. Most of the rest there was 13º, so Märzen. What confuses me is this: why is there almost no 10º beer currently brewed in Austria? When and why did it disappear?

I was surpeised that the output per brewery was so low in Bohemia - barely more than the average for the whole country, and about a fifth of that in Lower Austria. The latter's figure will be so high because of the large breweries around Vienna. As there were already industrial breweries in Bohemia there must have still been a lot of small ones.

There's quite a bit more of this to come.

Vienna Lagers in the 1870's

We're back with Vienna Lager in the 19th century. Looking at some actual beers of the period. Sadly not drinking them, but you can't have everything.

The purpose of this post - god that sounds a bit pretentious - is to put some flesh on the bones of the output by degree Balling table. To tie in types of beer with those gravity ranges.

Starting with Abzugsbier, which is the same as thing as Schenkbier or Winterbier. It's the ancestor of modern Czech Výčepní Pivo, its country's most popular style. Which prompts me to ask this question: why (and when) did 10º beer fall out of favour in Vienna? Because there's bugger all in that category brewed now. A follow-up question would be: why did it remain popular in Czechoslovakia / the Czech Republic?

Getting back to the beer, this what Wahl and Henius have to say about it: lagered 6 to 8 weeks, bunged 1 or 2 weeks, cooled to about zero, CO2 content 0.32-0.39%, 200 to 260g hops per hectolitre*.

Wahl and Henius mention a stronger kind of Abzugsbier, with a gravity of 11.5º Balling. I've not seen any evidence of it in the analyses.

Moving up the gravities, one of only 12º beer is Dreher's Pilsener. My guess is that it's a style which wasn't much brewed in Vienna back then. Pilsener is still remarkably little-brewed in Austria.

Next Lagerbier which, judging by the number of examples, was also a pretty popular style. all are just over 13º, with the exception of two outliers, the 12º Lichtenthal and almost 15º Simmering. I'll turn or Wahl & Henius again for more details about Lagerbier: it had 320 to 400g of hops per hectolitre and was stored four to five months, bunged (if at all) max. 2 weeks**.

Note the low level of attenuation of all these beers. Only a couple creep over 70%.

I'm surprised to see so few Märzen samples. Both are just a touch under 14º, and are a similar gravity to modern takes on the style. Interestingly Schellenhof's is paler than Dreher's Pilsener. I'm not sure what scale the colour is measured in, but three analyses of Pilsen-brewed Pilsener are 3.5, 4 and 4.3.  To put that into context, German brewed Ale had a colour of 10, Porter 40. It seems to me that these Vienna beers are only a little darker than Bohemian beer. I would have guessed that Vienna Lagers were a similar colour to the Ale, 10 on this scale.

Wahl & Henius reckon Märzen had 380 to 420g of hops per hectolitre***.

The two samples of Export are pretty different, gravity-wise. And neither is very close to the 15.5º Wahl & Henius specified. 400 to 550g of hops per hectolitre was the hopping rate****.

Weirdly, the only Bock is weaker than one of the Exports. That makes no sense. In ascending order of gravity, it should go: Abzugsbier, Lagerbier, Märzen, Export and finally Bock. As I've been trying (mostly vainly) to explain for years, Märzen and Export aren't so much style designations as indications of strength. I'm certain that all the strengths of beer below would have been roughly similar in character.

Here's the table. Enjoy.

Vienna Lagers in the 1870's
Year	Brewer	Beer	OG Plato	FG Plato	OG	FG	Acidity	colour	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1870	Grinzing	Abzugbier	9.93	3.37	1039.6	1013.1	0.11	5	3.43	66.06%
1870	Hütteldorf	Abzugbier	9.74	3.78	1038.8	1014.7	0.09	5	3.11	61.19%
1870	Lichtenthal	Abzugbier	10.07	3.65	1040.2	1014.2	0.08	5	3.36	63.75%
1870	Nussdorf	Abzugbier	10.78	3.93	1043.1	1015.3	0.09	5	3.59	63.54%
1870	Ottakring	Abzugbier	10.43	2.53	1041.6	1009.8	0.11	4.8	4.14	75.74%
1870	Simmering	Abzugbier	10.17	3.83	1040.6	1014.9	0.1	5.9	3.32	62.34%
1870	St. Mark	Abzugbier	10.35	3.81	1041.3	1014.8	0.1	5	3.42	64.16%
1876	Schwechater	Bock	16.80	4.25	1068.8	1016.6			7.23	74.70%
1876	Liesinger	Export	17.08	6.35	1070.0	1024.9	0.28		5.83	62.82%
1876	Schwechater	Export	13.05	4.80	1052.6	1018.7	0.13		4.40	63.22%
1870	Grinzing	Lagerbier	13.39	3.93	1054.1	1015.3	0.12	4.6	5.04	70.65%
1870	Hütteldorf	Lagerbier	13.33	3.83	1053.8	1014.9	0.11	5	5.06	71.27%
1870	Lichtenthal	Lagerbier	12.23	3.60	1049.2	1014.0	0.11	4.8	4.56	70.56%
1870	Nussdorf	Lagerbier	13.20	5.02	1053.3	1019.6	0.13	5.2	4.35	61.97%
1870	Ottakring	Lagerbier	13.25	4.03	1053.5	1015.7	0.16	5.1	4.90	69.58%
1870	Schellenhof	Lagerbier	13.06	5.07	1052.7	1019.8	0.15	4.6	4.25	61.18%
1870	Simmering	Lagerbier	14.86	5.39	1060.4	1021.1	0.2	5.9	5.08	63.73%
1870	Schellenhof	Märzen	13.83	5.49	1056.0	1021.5	0.14	5.6	4.45	60.30%
1870	St. Mark	Märzen	13.80	4.92	1055.8	1019.2	0.11	6.7	4.74	64.35%
1870	Dreher	Pilsener	12.74	4.29	1051.3	1016.7	0.17	6	4.48	66.33%
1876	Nussdorfer	Schenk Beer	10.78	3.75	1043.1	1014.6			3.69	65.21%
Sources:
"Theory and Practice of the Preparation of Malt and the Fabrication of Beer" Julius E. Thausing, Anton Schwartz and A.H. Bauer, Philadelphia 1882, pages 748-751
Wahl & Henius, pages 823-830

* "American Handy Book of Brewing , Malting and Auxiliary Trades" by Wahl & Henius, Chicago, 1902, pages 780 - 792.

** "American Handy Book of Brewing , Malting and Auxiliary Trades" by Wahl & Henius, Chicago, 1902, pages 780 - 792.

*** "American Handy Book of Brewing , Malting and Auxiliary Trades" by Wahl & Henius, Chicago, 1902, pages 780 - 792.

**** "American Handy Book of Brewing , Malting and Auxiliary Trades" by Wahl & Henius, Chicago, 1902, pages 780 - 792.

The decline of Vienna Lager

I was really pleased when someone on BeerAdvocate pointed me in the direction of some Austro-Hungarian beer statistics. Something I can never get enough of.

It's confirmed something I'd suspected: that the strength of Austrian beer - in particular that of Vienna - fell towards the end of the 19th century. Confirmation not so much of the fact but of the date. You just have to look at the gravity of modern Austrian Märzen. It's in the range 11.5º to 12.5º Plato. In the 1870's, they were closer to 14º Plato*.

A word of warning: this is going to be a table-heavy post. Just how I like them. Words are very overrated. That may sound a little odd coming from someone who's always dreamed of being a writer.  (Though I am the person with not one but two books without any complete sentences other than the copyright notice.) But some things - like the trends in beer strength we're looking at today - are much easier to explain through the medium of numbers.

The 1860's had been boom time for Vienna beer, with Dreher's Schwechat brewery leading the way. Vienna Lager became all the rage after it was exposed to a wider audience at the Paris International Exhibition of 1867. For a while it became dead trendy and was the first Lager to be regularly sold in London. But the good times don't seem to have lasted that long. There was soon competition in the form of first Bavarian and then Bohemian Lager.

The Schwechat beer that introduced London to Lager was quite strong, with a gravity of 1062º, which 15.2º Balling. It sounds more like an Export than a Märzen, if you ask me. This was probably stronger than the beer usually sold in Vienna.

I was surprised to see beer production falling in Vienna after 1874. But then I looked at the figures for the whole of Austria-Hungary and noticed the same downwards trend. So I thought I'd see what percentage of the total came from Vienna. It shows that proportional less was being brewed in Vienna, falling from just under 24% to almost 21%. I wonder what the reason was? Were Viennese breweries starting to come under pressure in export markets?

Here are the figures:

Austrian beer production 1870 - 1881
Year	Austria	Vienna	% Vienna
1865	7,295,000	1,423,142	19.51%
1870	9,304,000
1871	10,028,000
1872	11,445,000
1873	12,685,000
1874	11,744,000	2,777,403	23.65%
1875	11,536,000	2,740,314	23.75%
1876	11,671,000	2,494,981	21.38%
1877	11,101,000	2,251,150	20.28%
1878	10,815,000	2,424,361	22.42%
1879	10,707,000	2,230,791	20.83%
1880	10,530,000	2,253,688	21.40%
1881	11,530,000	2,393,319	20.76%
Sources:
"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.
“Bericht über der Welt_Ausstellung zu Paris im Jahre 1867, volume 7”, 1868, page 126.
European Statistics 1750-1970 by B. R. Mitchell, 1978, page 283.

Now onto the real point of all this: looking at the change in gravity of the beer brewed in Vienna. First broken down by degree Balling in hectolitres:

Beer production of the 25 breweries in the Vienna area by degree Balling (hl)
Year	9	10	11	12	13	14	15 and 16	total
1874	800	1,402,591	67,893	106,131	808,084	231,643	86,199	2,777,403
1875	780	1,442,171	68,928	89,259	776,354	239,718	76,164	2,740,314
1876	11,090	1,413,268	35,583	86,854	725,097	127,342	53,525	2,494,981
1877	3,025	1,283,028	67,092	97,007	625,943	99,224	40,590	2,251,150
1878	150	1,451,560	147,546	35,285	496,750	100,252	47,386	2,424,361
1879	630	1,324,738	173,814	15,486	517,127	106,260	56,166	2,230,791
1880	884	1,497,766	107,628	10,066	600,588	78,326	60,290	2,253,688
1881	85	1,546,523	124,448	42,458	564,576	74,339	52,290	2,393,319
Source:
"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.

Next by percentage:

Beer production of the 25 breweries in the Vienna area by degree Balling (%)
Year	9	10	11	12	13	14	15 and 16	total
1874	0.03%	50.50%	2.44%	3.82%	29.09%	8.34%	3.10%	97.33%
1875	0.03%	52.63%	2.52%	3.26%	28.33%	8.75%	2.78%	98.29%
1876	0.44%	56.64%	1.43%	3.48%	29.06%	5.10%	2.15%	98.31%
1877	0.13%	56.99%	2.98%	4.31%	27.81%	4.41%	1.80%	98.43%
1878	0.01%	59.87%	6.09%	1.46%	20.49%	4.14%	1.95%	94.00%
1879	0.03%	59.38%	7.79%	0.69%	23.18%	4.76%	2.52%	98.36%
1880	0.04%	66.46%	4.78%	0.45%	26.65%	3.48%	2.68%	104.52%
1881	0.004%	64.62%	5.20%	1.77%	23.59%	3.11%	2.18%	100.48%
Source:
"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.

Output of 13º beer fell from 29% of the total to 23.5%. 14º beer fared even worse, declining from 8.3% to 3.1%. Surprisingly, output of 12º beer fell by more than 50%. The big winners were 10º beer, up from 50.5% to 64.6% and 11º beer, which went from 2.4% to 5.2%.

(Yes, I realise the percentages don't add up properly. The totals in the original document aren't the sum of the columns. I've just used them as is.)

Grouping the beers into 9º to 12º and 13º to 16º is even more revealing:

Vienna output in two strength groups (hl)
Year	9 to 12	13 to 16	total
1874	1,577,415	1,125,926	2,703,341
1875	1,601,138	1,092,236	2,693,374
1876	1,546,795	905,964	2,452,759
1877	1,450,152	765,757	2,215,909
1878	1,634,541	644,388	2,278,929
1879	1,514,668	679,553	2,194,221
1880	1,616,344	739,204	2,355,548
1881	1,713,514	691,205	2,404,719
Source:
"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.

Vienna output in two strength groups (%)
Year	9 to 12	13 to 16	total
1874	58.35%	41.65%	100%
1875	59.45%	40.55%	100%
1876	63.06%	36.94%	100%
1877	65.44%	34.56%	100%
1878	71.72%	28.28%	100%
1879	69.03%	30.97%	100%
1880	68.62%	31.38%	100%
1881	71.26%	28.74%	100%
Source:
"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.

The stronger beers declined from 41.7% to 28.7% of the total.

I wouldn't have been surprised at that percentage of 10º being brewed in Bohemia and Moravia, but I hadn't expected it of Vienna. You learn something every day.

There will be more tables of Autro-Hungarian statistics to follow. How appropriate for the WW I centenary.









* "Theory and Practice of the Preparation of Malt and the Fabrication of Beer" Julius E. Thausing, Anton Schwartz and A.H. Bauer, Philadelphia 1882, pages 748-751