Output of the largest London Porter breweries in 1795 and 1796

The titles just keep on getting better and better. Just couldn't think of anything snappier.

Unless you've been sleep-reading, you'll have realised by now how much I love numbers. It's really gone beyond normal love and moved on to stalking. Yes, I stalk numbers. It's a harmless enough passtime. I'm always please to find new ones. Like this set. Or at least some of them.

They come from a throwaway little item in the Caledonian Mercury. They're presented like a league table and, to be honest, that's the way brewers saw them. Thrale was obsessed with moving his brewery up the rankings. That the figures were made public must have made any fall output or placing particularly annoying because everyone knew about it.

Most of the figures I already had from Peter Mathias's “The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830”. But his table only contains the top eight. The bottom four - Elliot, Clowes, Stevenson and Philips - are missing. Most of the numbers match, taking into a ccdount a little rounding. Some are slightly different, again no biggie. But there are a couople that are way out.

I've created two tables, one with just the Caledonian Mercury figures. The Other is with Mathias's numbers, except for the four breweries not in his table, for which I've used the Caledonian Mercury numbers.

Martyn Cornell had mentioned this to me before, when we were discussing how confusing the two Calvert breweries were. He said that he thought Mathias might have got the two mixed up in parts of his table. That could well be true, because the output figures of the two Calverts are the other way around in the Caldonian Mercury table. That shows F. Calvert as producing more, while Mathias allots the larger output to J. Calvert. Clearly either the Caldonian Mercury of Mathias is wrong.

The other big difference is in the output of Meux for 1796. Mathias gives 103,800, the Caldonian Mercury 96,600. I wonder what the reason is for the differnce and which is correct?

The table gives an idea of how much beer was produced in London at the end of the 18th century. remember these are only the 12 largest Porter breweries. Though I doubt any Ale brewer made as much as even number 12 on this list. In 1795, 5,599,323 of Strong Beer were brewed in the UK*. In London the 12 largest Porter brewers made 987,500, of 17.6% of the UK total. That's mightily impressive, in a time before trains.

Here are the tables, first the Caledonian Mercury one:

Output of the largest London Porter breweries (barrels)
brewery	1795	1796
Whitbread	158,800	202,000
Thrale	122,300	137,800
Meux	121,400	96,600
Shum	101,800	110,700
Hanbury	99,000	109,100
Goodwin	70,500	97,500
Calvert (F.)	83,400	97,500
Calvert (J.)	56,600	67,000
Elliot	46,700	58,200
Clowes	49,200	55,700
Stevenson	39,000	45,800
Philips	38,800	42,600
total	987,500	1,120,500
Source:
Caledonian Mercury - Monday 18 July 1796, page 3.

Now Mathias's:

Output of the largest London Porter breweries (barrels)
brewery	1795	1796
Whitbread	159,000	202,000
Thrale	122,300	137,800
Meux	121,500	103,800
Shum	101,800	110,700
Hanbury	99,100	109,200
Goodwin	70,500	97,600
Calvert (F.)	56,000	68,000
Calvert (J.)	83,500	97,600
Elliot	46,700	58,200
Clowes	49,200	55,700
Stevenson	39,000	45,800
Philips	38,800	42,600
total	987,400	1,129,000
Sources:
“The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830”, Peter Mathias, 1959, p 551-552
Caledonian Mercury - Monday 18 July 1796, page 3.

* Accounts and Papers: relating to Assessed Taxes; Stamps: Rates of Duties; Customs and Excise; Beer, Hops, and Malt; Spirits; the Distilleries, session 21 November 1826 - 2 July 1827., 1827. pages 130 - 131.