Hop consumption and beer production in 1882

Numbers. numbers, numbers. It's been a while since I did a totally number-based post. As usual, it's something I tripped over while searching for something else.

I was trying to find out what varieties of hops were grown on the West Coast of the USA around 1900. Someone helfully pointed me at a couple of books on the internet. One of which had some lovely numbers. About beer production and hop consumption.

I realised that there was some interesting information that could be derived from these statistcs. The original table only contains the first four columns. I've calculated the others myself. What I find of particular interest is how many hops were being consumed in the UK.

600,000 zentners (a zentner is 50 kg) were consumed in the UK. Slightly more than in the whole rest of Europe. Even though the UK produced approximaately half a s much beer as the continent. The explanation is simple: British beer was for more heavily hopped: 0.76 kg. per hl. as opposed to 0.39 kg.

Everywhere else in Europe, hopping rates were much lower. Even the place with the highest, Bavaria, was way behind the UK with only 0.46 kg. per hl. Surprisingly, the only country to come close is the USA, at 0.70 kg per hl. Though perhaps that shouldn't be such a shock as considerable quantities of British-style beers were still being brewed in the USA.

Hop consumption and beer production in 1882
Countries	Hop Consump-tion. Centner.	Annual Beer Production. Hectoliter.	Annual Beer Consumption. Per Capita.	kg. hops per hl.	% of total hops consumed	% total beer production
North Germany	150,000	21,136,000	61	0.35	10.81%	16.47%
Bavaria	112,000	12,153,000	426	0.46	8.07%	9.47%
Austria- Hungary	98,000	12,212,000	30	0.40	7.06%	9.52%
Belgium	65,000	7,866,000	154	0.41	4.68%	6.13%
France	53,000	7,125,000	24	0.37	3.82%	5.55%
Wurtemberg	31,000	4,197,000	212	0.37	2.23%	3.27%
Russia	25,000	2,863,000	4	0.44	1.80%	2.23%
Netherlands	10,000	1,452,000	40	0.34	0.72%	1.13%
Denmark	9,000	1,140,000	60	0.39	0.65%	0.89%
Baden	8,000	1,086,000	67	0.37	0.58%	0.85%
Sweden	7,000	930,000	21	0.38	0.50%	0.72%
Alsace-Lorraine	6,000	789,000	48	0.38	0.43%	0.61%
Norway	5,000	615,000	28	0.41	0.36%	0.48%
Switzerland	5,000	724,000	30	0.35	0.36%	0.56%
Other States	4,000	533,000	1	0.38	0.29%	0.42%
Continent	588,000	74,821,000		0.39	42.36%	58.30%
England	600,000	39,250,000	118	0.76	43.23%	30.58%
Europe	1,188,000	114,071,000		0.52	85.59%	88.89%
America	200,000	14,261,000	19	0.70	14.41%	11.11%
total	1,388,000	128,332,000		0.54	100.00%
Source:
"Hop Culture in the United States" by E. Meeker, 188w, E. Meeker & Co., page 135.