Scottish beer exports between the wars

I recently bought an academic tome with the snappy title of "The Dynamics of the international Brewing industry since 1800". All I wanted it for were some statistics on Scottish beer exports.

I need the information for the book on Scottish brewing I’m currently writing. It’s something I often do: buy a book for specific pieces of information. What else can I do if it isn’t available anywhere else?

The book is a series of articles on various related topics, written by well-known academics. The one I was interested in, called “Following the Flag”, was written by Ian Donnachie, author of the seminal “A History of the Brewing Industry in Scotland” (an excellent book, from which I’ve nicked loads of statistics).

This section in “Following the Flag” caught my eye:

"Certainly, compared to the period before 1914, export volumes from the United Kingdom halved during the inter-war years, falling to an average of 290,000 barrels per annum in the years 1924-28 and 270,00 barrels in 1934-38. Although there is no  corroborative data Scottish brewers probably continued to account for about a quarter of the total in the immediate post-war years."
"The Dynamics of the international Brewing industry since 1800" edited by Richard George Wilson and Terence Richard Gourvish, 1998, page 130.

It’s the final sentence that made me feel all weird. Because although Donnachie might not have the corroborative data, but I do. Or just about. Because, in addition to beer exported the figures also include other beer exempt from duty. The last column give the real figures for exports, which you can see are 10-20% less than the UK total for all types of duty free beer.

Scotland wasn’t responsible for 25% of UK exports between the wars. It was more like 50%. In some years, such as 1927 and 1928, even more than that.

Beer Exported on Drawback and Free of Duty
	England and Wales	Scotland	Ireland	United Kingdom	UK exports
1916	581,947	174,595	46,371	802,913
1917	314,333	73,896	30,095	418,324
1918	174,408	30,379	16,185	220,972
1919	470,794	195,995	33,821	700,610
1920	312,868	146,726	16,698	485,292	390,248
1921	215,719	92,193	12,648	320,560
1922	207,882	117,978	10,239	336,099	260,914
1923	176,913	108,544	2,270	287,727	257,454
1924	158,373	132,889	753	292,015	264,003
1925	180,731	145,603	415	326,749	290,824
1926	178,155	168,609	305	347,069	283,033
1927	156,258	179,242	232	338,732	287,445
1928	170,728	193,255		363,983	328,029
1929	176,381	223,638		400,019	352,942
1930	173,988	204,345		378,333	328,524
1931	159,278	147,527		306,805	289,516
1932	136,231	133,240		269,471	244,525
1933	117,363	126,254		243,617	217,981
Sources:
Brewers' Journal 1919, page 65.
Brewers' Journal 1922, page 71.
Brewers' Journal 1925, page 83.
Brewers' Journal 1928, page 87.
Brewers' Journal 1934, page 162.
Brewers' Almanack 1928, p. 115
Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 57

Weird that I should have more data than the academics.