Tied houses in the 1890s (part two)

I intended a single post based on the parliamentary debate on tied houses. Too many words.

Bite-sized is my aim with blog posts. Not much more than a screenful. That's about as much as I can be arsed to read. I'm guessing not many of you have a much longer attention span.

But I digress. To sum up what's going on: MPs arguing the toss about tied houses:

"Mr. G. Russell said his hon. friends, the members for Newcastle-under-Lyme and Leicester, were to be congratulated upon having elicited from a most competent judge, the hon. member for Burton, emphatic testimony in favour of the virtue of beer sold in free houses as against that of beer sold in tied houses. That testimony, however, was contradicted by no less an authority than the hon. member for Essex. Who should decide when brewers disagreed?"
The Brewers' Guardian 1895, page 132.

Bit of vested interests going on there. Most of the trade becoming tied buggered the big Burton brewers, who had relied on quality and reputation to sell their beer, rather than owning the pubs. Bass and Allsopp got into the tied trade too late and suffered the financial consequences.

Though it seems that certain famous brewers could get their beer into some "foreign" houses:

"Mr. Usborne denied that the beer supplied in free houses was much superior to the beer supplied in tied houses. As to the number of tied houses, he believed that quite 95 percent, were practically tied. He meant that the brewer or wholesale tradesman supplied the publican or retail tradesman with the capital with which he conducted his business. The number of publichouses was so large, and the competition consequently so keen, that it was easy for a publican to leave one house, if he was dissatisfied with the quality of the beer supplied, and to remove to another. Country brewers did not compel their tenants to sell their own beers exclusively. Any tenant of the firm with which he was connected could keep Allsopp’s ales or Guinness’s stout in stock if he chose to do so. He hoped a committee would be appointed to inquire into the question, because he was satisfied, and the trade were satisfied, that then the already often-contradicted and refuted statements made with reference to the tied-house system would be absolutely and completely exploded."
The Brewers' Guardian 1895, page 132.

Guinness managed to continue the pub-free model of business right through the rise and fall of the brewery-owned pub model. No-one else did. Bass sold a lot of beer through the pubs of others, but had a tied estate of their own. 

Those two breweries had products so desirable that even Whitbread sold considerable quantities through their pubs - all bottled by Whitbread, of course.

Whitbread sales of Porter & Stout 1929 – 1938 (barrels)
	total Whitbread production	Guinness & Bass	total	% Guinness & Bass
1929	481,663	45,595	527,258	8.65%
1930	492,605	50,064	542,669	9.23%
1931	466,218	45,245	511,463	8.85%
1932	416,623	37,977	454,600	8.35%
1933	437,102	39,192	476,294	8.23%
1934	476,205	41,528	517,733	8.02%
1935	494,715	41,773	536,488	7.79%
1936	510,260	41,344	551,604	7.50%
1937	528,725	41,353	570,078	7.25%
1938	538,914	39,077	577,991	6.76%
Sources:
Whitbread archive document number LMA/4453/D/02/16
Whitbread brewing records

A bit later, I know. But 8% of Guinness or Bass? That's a lot of beer. Forty or fifty thousand barrels.