UK beer imports 1961 -1969

I've collected beer statistics long before I started writing seriously. That's just the number-obsessed idiot that I am.

When throwing together a chapter of my latest wonderful book, Austerity, yesterday, I was shocked to realise that I'd never properly harvested the figures for beer imports into the UK. A shocking omission.

Something I promptly corrected. Spending an hour of my free day on Brewers' Almanack data extractions. Well worth it. Every number collected will come in useful someday. That's proived true so far.

Only the second half of the table is worth attention. The top half is clearly just Guinness Extra Stout. Technically an import. But not necessarily in drinkers' perception. That's not even all the Guinness sold in the UK. Their Park Royal brewery in London served the bottom half of the country.

Other than Guinness, the imports all look like Lager. Mostly from Denmark. So Carlsberg and Tuborg.With Dutch beer rising at the end. Which seems to correspond with Allied Breweries' purchase of Oranjeboom in 1967. Coincidence?

Those Dutch imports can't be Heineken, as you might expect. At this point, Heineken Pils, very unusually, was brewed under licence in the UK.

Weird how imports from Czechoslovakia collapse in 1968. I wonder why that was? And that beer being imported from Norway - what was that? I can't remember seeing Norwegian beer in the UK.

In case you get excited about the Belgian beer available back then, from what I see in the Whitbread Gravity Book, it was Stella, Lamot Pils and Ekla Pils.

UK beer imports 1961 -1969
Country of origin	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969
Irish Republic	1,329,752	1,245,451	1,215,539	1,281,126	1,215,168	1,240,440	1,277,257	1,313,038	1,252,844
Commonwealth Countries	1,740	2,303	3,793	3,007	3,344	2,226	2,738	2,890	2,730
Total Commonwealth Countries	1,331,492	1,247,758	1,219,332	1,284,133	1,218,512	1,248,066	1,279,995	1,315,928	1,255,574
Denmark	178,975	148,018	149,974	159,164	143,189	156,147	178,892	195,370	215,136
W. Germany	8,926	7,601	9,805	13,925	12,485	18,254	20,487	28,247	36,382
Netherlands	28,077	21,212	23,321	28,245	28,363	28,836	37,734	63,375	81,745
Belgium	8,907	8,391	5,303	5,803	5,053	5,287	5,752	4,993	4,770
Norway	2,390	2.308	3,887	4,491	6,081	5,344	5,945	5,109	6,327
Czechoslovakia	1,083	1,038	922	1,391	1,276	529	400	601	999
Sweden	670	578	1,112	459	460	863	226	112	591
Other Foreign Countries	655	589	853	1,392	1,166	3,352	1,607	2,866	5,332
Total Foreign Countries	229,689	189,795	195,177	214,870	198,073	218,612	251,013	300,673	351,284
Total bulk barrels	1,561,181	1,437,553	1,414,509	1,499,003	1,416,585	1,467,278	1,531,038	1,616,001	1,606,858
Source:
“1971 Brewers' Almanack”, page 55.