Another look at Scottish hopping

I'm always looking for new ways to analyse Scottish hopping rates. This is, I think, one of the best yet. Thank Brewer's Almanack and its many tables.

Because one lists brewing materials used and the number of barrels brewed each year. Which means I can easily work out the average hopping rate of beer brewed in the UK. Pretty handy, eh? Then there's William Younger. Their brewing records have a similar table. Combine the two and what do you get? Numbers fun.

It seems like a pretty fair comparison to me. How did Younger's hop usage stack up against the UK in general? I'll be honest, the results aren't very clear. Then there's a caveat about the numbers themselves. The dry hops are missing for some breweries in the UK figures. While they are included in the Younger's ones. Getting Confused? It gets worse. Younger's records have three different figures for the amount of beer brewed: barrels in the tun, barrels cleansed and excise barrels. Which to use? Because the barrels brewed in the UK figures is, I'm pretty sure, the number of barrels on which duty was charged. Or excise barrels. Whereas the materials are those used to brew the beer before any losses. That is, a larger number of barrels. So the real average quantity of hops per barrel would be lower. Because some of the hops would have been in the barrels lost during production.

On the face of, I should use the number of excise barrels. But, to be on the safe side, I've included the figures for both excise barrels and barrels in tun (i.e. number of barrels actually brewed). Feel free to use which ever set you prefer.

Brewing materials and hopping rates 1914 - 1950
	UK							Younger
year	grains (qtrs)	sugar (qtrs)	total (qtrs)	hops (lbs)	barrels	hops lbs/barrel	hops lbs/qtr	hops lbs/barrel (in tuns)	hops lbs/barrel (excise)	hops lbs/qtr
1914	7,099,421	1,639,855	8,739,276	62,655,376	36,162,273	1.73	7.17	1.30	1.40	5.95
1920	5,606,089	1,067,796	6,673,884	56,351,680	34,776,258	1.62	8.44
1922	4,418,298	811,034	5,229,332	44,632,672	27,815,249	1.60	8.54	1.45	1.59	6.60
1924	4,048,132	849,885	4,898,017	39,247,936	25,927,783	1.51	8.01	1.50	1.63	6.83
1926	3,932,891	916,457	4,849,348	39,802,000	25,987,830	1.53	8.21
1928	3,790,826	919,135	4,709,961	37,034,144	24,981,731	1.48	7.86
1930	3,622,839	917,619	4,540,458	34,416,368	24,488,629	1.41	7.58
1931	3,276,937	849,082	4,126,019	31,069,472	22,561,497	1.38	7.53	1.35	1.48	6.46
1932	2,553,740	688,563	3,242,303	24,593,744	18,864,711	1.30	7.59
1933	2,591,074	689,983	3,281,056	24,961,216	18,931,185	1.32	7.61	1.30	1.48	6.75
1934	2,851,752	771,614	3,623,366	26,142,928	20,378,879	1.28	7.22	1.04	1.27	5.49
1935	3,014,416	815,963	3,830,379	27,859,328	21,598,179	1.29	7.27
1936	3,083,263	852,709	3,935,972	28,929,600	22,207,859	1.30	7.35
1937	3,242,085	917,943	4,160,028	30,306,304	23,608,658	1.28	7.29
1938	3,360,389	947,387	4,307,776	31,118,752	24,339,360	1.28	7.22
1939	3,543,161	993,239	4,536,400	32,000,080	25,691,217	1.25	7.05
1940	3,409,779	766,388	4,176,167	29,737,344	24,925,704	1.19	7.12	0.80	0.85	4.93
1941	3,749,022	698,821	4,447,843	28,151,648	28,170,582	1.00	6.33
1942	3,784,318	705,711	4,490,029	24,976,784	29,584,656	0.84	5.56
1943	3,855,366	700,287	4,555,652	25,937,968	29,811,321	0.87	5.69
1944	4,001,824	729,324	4,731,148	27,316,800	31,380,684	0.87	5.77
1945	4,004,332	892,032	4,896,364	27,420,064	31,990,334	0.86	5.60
1946	3,749,165	895,011	4,644,176	25,334,064	31,066,950	0.82	5.46
1947	3,387,187	800,593	4,187,780	24,389,008	30,103,180	0.81	5.82
1948	3,392,205	721,779	4,113,984	25,924,640	28,813,725	0.90	6.30
1949	3,217,710	651,606	3,869,316	26,113,696	26,744,457	0.98	6.75
1950	3,201,590	642,939	3,844,529	26,093,648	25,339,062	1.03	6.79	0.83	1.18	5.12
Sources:
William Younger brewing records documents WY/6/1/2/45, WY/6/1/2/58, WY/6/1/2/63, WY/6/1/2/68, WY/6/1/2/70, WY/6/1/2/76 and WY/6/1/2/88 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive
1953 Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 62

Between 1922 and 1934, Younger's average hopping rate is very close to the national average. In 1914 and 1940, however, it's a fair bit lower. For 1950, it depends on which barrelage figure you pick. One's about 20% less, the other about 15% more.

Despite the problems with the numbers, it would seem difficult to claim that Younger used a much smaller quantity of hops in its beers than the average for the UK. Remember that the averages include the large Burton brewers who between them would have been responsible for several million barrels. I can't imagine they were hopping at the average rate.

Overall, slightly negative evidence. By which I mean, there's nothing in there to back up the assertion that Scottish brewers used significantly smaller quantities of hops than English brewers.