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Monday, 18 March 2019

Dublin Porter Shipments to Great Britain 1905 - 1908


Guinness's dominationof Irish brewing is nothing new. Especially when it comes to Stout. Though there may have been Dublin rivals, they were brewing on a far smaller scale than Guinness.

For one simple reason: Guinness had penertrated the British market. Which meant they had a massively larger potential customer base than if their operations had been limited to Ireland.


Dublin Porter Shipments to Great Britain 1905 - 1908
Brewery 1905 1906 1907 1908
Guinness & Co. 604,818 650,981 670,503 687,486
Watkins, Jameson & Co. 38,544 39,482 36,542 36,176
D'Arcy & Son 23,493 27,789 23,472 21,947
Mountjoy Brewery 30,498 29,562 27,513 25,523
Other shippers 228 0 0 22,835
Total 697,581 747,813 758,030 793,965
Source:
The Brewers' Journal, vol. 45, 1909, page 8.

Shipments to Britain from the other three other Dublin breweries were declining while those of Guinness were increasing. Eventually the trade of the other breweries would dwindle to nothing.

As you can see in the more detailed table below, in 1908 about a third of Gunness sales were in Great Britaion, the other two thirds in Ireland. When WW I erupted, the proportion shipped to Britain had increased to 40%. It increased even further after WW I, exceeding 50% in 1920.

Though even in 1904 Guinness was selling more Extra Stout in Britain than in Ireland, where the majority of their sales was in the form of Porter. Guinness actively discouraged the shipment of its Porter to Britain because they were afraid of it being passed off as Extra Stout. At this point Extra Stout had an OG of 1075º and Porter 1060º.

Guinness sales 1904 - 1914
Extra Stout Porter other totals
Year Britain Ireland Britain Ireland total Britain Ireland FES/Export total
1904 584,598 494,949 1,375 849,883 74,980 585,973 1,344,832 74,980 2,005,785
1905 601,553 503,096 1,538 858,243 97,520 603,091 1,361,339 97,520 2,061,950
1906 643,878 509,573 1,572 857,919 113,204 645,450 1,357,492 113,204 1,482,268
1907 678,902 521,583 1,137 858,433 116,459 680,039 1,380,016 116,459 2,176,514
1908 695,562 531,337 963 859,977 100,799 696,525 1,391,314 100,799 2,188,638
1909 706,229 560,104 810 879,584 115,596 707,039 1,439,688 115,596 2,262,323
1910 782,281 593,459 1,231 901,660 135,860 783,512 1,495,119 135,860 2,414,491
1911 825,604 616,099 1,738 913,439 146,242 827,342 1,529,536 146,242 2,503,122
1912 913,659 674,868 556 926,592 157,880 914,215 1,601,460 157,880 2,673,555
1913 1,022,077 736,563 276 930,173 139,150 1,022,353 1,666,735 139,150 2,828,243
1914 1,070,814 731,511 116 897,455 141,844 1,070,930 1,628,965 141,844 2,642,740
Source:
"A Bottle of Guinness please" by David Hughes, pages 276-279

Numbers, eh? What could be more fun? Yes, obviously certain things people do in private without clothes. but otherwise, what can beat the existential thrill of scraping back the dirt to reveal a fresh number hoard? And can I come up with a paragraph containing more question marks?


6 comments:

  1. Anonymous18 March 2019 at 19:52

    In this post about Guinness Porter and Stout in 1883, you said there wasn't much difference:

    http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2007/11/irish-porter-london-porter.html

    Do you know if they were still pretty similar in the early 1900s, besides the gravity difference you mentioned? Or were there notable differences in ingredients and/or brewing methods?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ron Pattinson19 March 2019 at 02:00

    Anonymous,

    I doubt very much that the grists and brewing methods of Guinness Porter and Extra Stout would have diverged. That's just not the way breweries worked backl then.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Martyn Cornell19 March 2019 at 03:11

    It took Guinness a LONG time to finally exclude all its smaller rivals: I've just put together a table covering Dublin stout and porter exports over 70 years, from 1854 to 1924, in 10-year intervals. In 1854 Guinness had only (!) 49% of the Dublin export market, and that actually fell to 44% by 1864, on a market up almost 130% (the big difference was the launch of the Mountjoy brewery, which nabbed an 11% share of exports in 10 years). Guinness's share was up to 57% in 1874, 71% in 1884, 76% in 1894, 84% in 1904 and 92% in 1914: only in 1924 did it hit 99%.

    Now I just need to see if it's possible to match up the figures for Beamish & Crawford and Murphy's …

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ron Pattinson19 March 2019 at 05:17

    Martyn,

    I've noticed that in 19th-centuiry advertisements it's often rather vague about the brewery, just calling it Dublin Stout. With the e exception of Guinness, who are often mentioned by name. I can hardly think of a single example of another Dublin brewery being named. Was one of the reasons for the success of Guinness the way it turned itself into a recognised brand?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown19 March 2019 at 06:03

    Hi Ron ,
    I`m pretty sure I`ve seen adverts etc for The Mountjoy Brewery and Findlatter`s ; and the D`Arcy`s Brewery name rings with faint echoes of campanology .
    From what I can remember ; they were usually within an advert for the brewery`s own product range; Ill see if I can dig them out and let you have a copy ,
    Cheers ,
    Edd

    ReplyDelete
  6. Martyn Cornell23 March 2019 at 04:49

    I've seen ads for Watkins's stout on sale in Norwich, and Manders & Powell in Taunton, and Elizabeth Alley (a particularly obscure Dublin porter brewer whose son ran a more famous brewery in Boston in the US) advertised a depot in Liverpool in 1850.

    ReplyDelete