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Tuesday, 13 January 2015

German brewing in the 1970’s – more statistics

Time for part two of my statistics feast. Loads more tables. And ones that tell us much about the changes in Europe’s brewing industry over the last few decades.

These figures are all connected with breweries: number of breweries, average output per brewery, average output per employee.

The number of breweries per country varied enormously. We’re still back when half of Europe’s breweries were in West Germany.

“Table III gives the number of working breweries in each of the EEC countries in 1974. The enormous differences influence not only the methods of beer production (i.e. technology) but also the costs of production and distribution, as we will see later.

Table III also illustrates one of the main problems in West Germany. In 1974 the EEC countries had 2,183 production breweries (not companies) which, together, were producing 226,409 million hl per year. The average production per brewery was 103,700 hl. In Ireland, the Netherlands and Great Britain the average production per brewery ranged between 414,700 hl and 869,300 hl but in the much smaller West German breweries the average production was 56,700 hl. Indeed we have today, in West Germany, 1,472 breweries with production less than 120,000 hl/year and only 164 plants with more than that, including only 38 breweries with more than 500,000 hl per year (305,550 brl/year). If you remember that the average production of the 152 breweries in Great Britain is 414,700 hl/year, you can imagine how different the technical and technological problems are in the brewing industry in West Germany.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 83, Issue 1, March-April 1977, page 72.

Obviously, the countries with fewer breweries generally had greater output per brewery. Germany, with equivalently far more breweries than anyone else, came bottom. Ireland, with only a handful left, came top.

Here’s the table:

TABLE III. No. of Breweries and Average Beer Production per Brewery in 1974 (x 1,000 hl).
No. of breweries Production per brewery
Denmark 50 168.1
Eire 7 869.3
Great Britain 152 414.7
Italy 37 216.6
Netherlands 23 506.2
Luxemburg 7 98.9
Belgium 185 75.7
France 86 252.5
West Germany 1,636 56.7
Total 2,183 Average 103.7

For comparison purposes, here are some recent figures for the same countries:

Number of Active Breweries 2008 - 2013
Country 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 % change 2008 - 2013
Denmark* N/A N/A N/A 150 150 150 N/A
Ireland* 26 26 26 26 26 30 15.38%
United Kingdom 725 745 828 948 1,300 1,490 105.52%
Italy 220 256 308 350 421 509 131.36%
Netherlands* 72 N/A N/A 125 165 185 156.94%
Luxembourg 5 6 7 7 7 7 40.00%
Belgium* 135 127 135 123 150 160 18.52%
France 132 322 387 442 503 580 339.39%
Germany 1,328 1,331 1,333 1,347 1,340 1,349 1.58%
total 2,643 2,813 3,024 3,518 4,062 4,460 68.75%
* Number of microbreweries unknown
Source:
"Beer Statistics 2014 edition", Brewers of Europe, 2014, page 21.

In the last few years there’s been a remarkable surge in brewery numbers in many European countries. France has seen the biggest growth, but the UK, Italy and The Netherlands have seen the number of breweries double in 5 years. And there’s another very significant figure in there. For the first time I can remember Germany is no longer the country with the most breweries, having been passed by the UK in 2013.

Nailing the two tables together in my inimitable way is very revealing:

Number of Active Breweries 2008 - 2013
Country 1974 2013 % change 2008 - 2013
Denmark 50 150 200.00%
Ireland 7 30 328.57%
United Kingdom 152 1,490 880.26%
Italy 37 509 1275.68%
Netherlands 23 185 704.35%
Luxembourg 7 7 0.00%
Belgium 185 160 -13.51%
France 86 580 574.42%
Germany 1,636 1,349 -17.54%
total 2,183 4,460 104.31%
Sources:
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 83, Issue 1, March-April 1977, page 72.
"Beer Statistics 2014 edition", Brewers of Europe, 2014, page 21.

Overall the number of breweries in the nine countries has more than doubled, but the growth has been very uneven. In two countries – Belgium and Germany – the number has fallen. Factoring in the 200 or so DDR breweries would make the German numbers look even worse.

Comparing the output per brewery in 1974 and 2013 is very illuminating. And I’m sure it’s a development no-one in the industry would have foreseen in the 1970’s.

Production per brewery in 2013 (1,000 hl)
Country output 2013 No. of breweries 2013 Production per brewery 2013 Production per brewery 1974 % change 1974 - 2013
Denmark 6,166 150 41.11 168.1 -75.55%
Ireland 8,008 30 266.93 869.3 -69.29%
United Kingdom 41,956 1,490 28.16 414.7 -93.21%
Italy 13,256 509 26.04 216.6 -87.98%
Netherlands 23,636 185 127.76 506.2 -74.76%
Luxembourg 281 7 40.14 98.9 -59.41%
Belgium 18,069 160 112.93 75.7 49.18%
France 15,491 580 26.71 252.5 -89.42%
Germany 94,365 1,349 69.95 56.7 23.37%
total/ average 221,228 4,460 49.60 103.7 -52.17%
Sources:
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 83, Issue 1, March-April 1977, page 72.
"Beer Statistics 2014 edition", Brewers of Europe, 2014, pages 7 and 21.

Average output per brewery has fallen everywhere except Germany and Belgium. Which is logical enough, as they’re the two countries with no significant increase in the number of breweries. The UK has gone from having one of the highest averages to third lowest.

Of course, this doesn’t mean there are no longer large breweries. Just that the industry has become fragmented, with businesses on very different scales. On the one hand, a few large industrial breweries churning out millions of hectolitres and on the other loads of small outfits making just a few thousand.

It’s really brought home to me just how much the beer scene has changed since I started drinking. Then a continued decline in number of breweries seemed inevitable. Even the most optimistic drinker wouldn’t have dreamed that the UK could have more than 1,000 breweries again.

I’ve still not completely cleared out this statistic mine. More to come.

3 comments:

  1. There's another interesting story in that, of the 7 Irish breweries in 1974, only two were still operational at the end of 2013. The seven were all owned by multinational corporations and they've been on a massive consolidation binge since the beginning of the 21st century. I'd guess it's the same for the UK numbers, and other places too.

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  2. Beer Nut,

    there are two contradictory trends. at the top end, continued consolidation and brewing on an ever larger scale. At the bottom, ever more breweries brewing on a very modest scale.

    Oh, and there's a third trend: international giants buying smaller new breweries. Be interesting to see where that takes us.

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  3. A thought about the number for Belgium.
    Belgium has an evergrowing number of "beerfirms" who have their beers brewed by other breweries. Some of those are even specialised in contract-brewing. So, we have a lot of new brews, but hardly new breweries.

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