Thursday 17 June 2021

Belgian brewing 1929 - 1935

I'm sticking with my favourite Polish trade magazine, Which is certainly delivering in terms of numbers. Lovely, tempting numbers. Drawing me away from what I should really be doing, the seductive little devils.

As you should have guessed from the title, these statistics are for Belgian brewing. Let's see what they tell us.

Belgium had a shitload of breweries between the wars. 1,631 might sound impressive, but that's way down on before WW I. Back then there were more than 3,300. It was the war that did for many of them. The Germans knicked most copper vessels to make munitions and many small breweries simply never reopened. I guess many didn't have the capital to replace the equipment.

The effect of the Wall Street Crash and the recession which followed it is clear to read in the production figures. With a steep decline after 1931. A drop in sales seems to have reversed the trend in output per brewery increasing. An average of around 10,000 hl is very low. If you look in the second table, you'll see that in the UK the average was almost treble that.

The trends in the UK were very similar to in Belgium - really bad sales in 1932 and 1933, with a slight improvement in 1934. You can see that a high percentage of the beer imported into Belgium came from the UK.

Belgian brewing 1929 - 1935
year number of breweries production in 1000 hl. imports 1000 hl. exports 1000 hl. consumption in 1000 hl. output per brewery hl
1929 1,631 15,377 196 19 15,553     9,536
1930 1,556 16,662 228 10 16,880   10,848
1931 1,494 18,377 212 10 18,579   12,436
1932 1,484 15,558 156 8 15,707   10,584
1933 1,457 14,667 113 6 14,774   10,140
1934 1,372 14,717 95 5 14,806   10,792
1935     92 7    
Source:
Przegląd Piwowarsko-Słodowniczy: organ Związku Piwowarów w Polsce 1936 wrzesień R.2 Nr3, page 67.

UK brewing 1930 - 1935
year number of breweries production hl. output per brewery hl exports to Belgium hl
1930            1,418 41,015,395          28,925       129,841
1931   39,113,784         134,414
1932            1,286 34,025,411          26,458       106,884
1933   29,376,748           85,428
1934            1,197 33,029,558          27,594         60,270
1935            1,144 34,146,520          29,848         58,203
Sources:
Brewers' Almanack 1955 p.68
Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50
BBPA Statistical Handbook 2003, p. 92
Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 57.


2 comments:

The Beer Nut said...

This is the context into which Guinness Special Export Stout was born, isn't it?

Ron Pattinson said...

Nut,

exactly.