Tuesday 15 June 2021

Czech beer sales by region

You guessed it - more Czech beer statistics. And why not?I would be a shame to waste such lovely juicy numbers.

This set shows beer sales by region. And I have to admit that I was shocked by what I saw. I was aware that Slovakia was more of a beer wine country. But I wasn't prepared for just how little beer was consumed there before the war.

To put the numbers into context, it's handy to know how many people lived in each bit of the country. Bohemia and Moravia had a population of around 10 million, Slovakia 5 million and Silesia just 1 million. That comes out to very roughly 7.8 litres per head in Bohemia and Moravia, 18.7 litres in Silesia and just 0.9 litres in Slovakia. That's a pretty huge difference. On an annual basis, that's 94, 225 and 11 litres approximately on an annual basis.

That gap closed considerably after WW II. In the early 2000's, Czech beer consumption was 160 litres per head, Slovak 93 litres.

Beer consumption was, overall, 15% on June 1935. Which must have been pretty worrying for Czech brewers.

Beer sales for domestic consumption by district
  Bohemia & Moravia Silesia Slovakia and Ruthenia In total
  hl % hl % hl %  
June_1935 705,887 75.23% 187,295 19.96% 45,148 4.81% 938,330
June_1936 596,596 75.25% 158,752 20.02% 37,440 4.72% 792,788
fall in hl.  109,291   28,543   7,708   145,542
fall in % 15.5   15.2   17.1   15.5
Source:
Przegląd Piwowarsko-Słodowniczy: organ Związku Piwowarów w Polsce 1936 wrzesień R.2 Nr3, page 66.

3 comments:

Mike in NSW said...

Back in the 1960s, living in the UK, I went on a grammar school exchange holiday to Bratislava in Slovakia for a couple of weeks.

While we did a fair bit of under age drinking (not that it was under age over there) and drank half litres in the pubs, it struck me even then that wine seemed to be the preferred tipple, especially at my host family's place where Dad (fitter and turner or something) would get home and reach for a rather cheeky red but never beer.

Of course we were bang in the middle of the wine region and on our organised sightseeing trips the vineyards seemed vast.

BryanB said...

I suspect you meant to type that Slovakia was "more of a wine country", no?

Anonymous said...

I'd be curious whether wine growing areas of Germany and Austria have similar stats showing up.