Sunday 19 December 2021

Dutch beer production by type 1938 - 1954 (again)

Yes. Time for even more numbers.  No respite quite yet.

Here’s a different breakdown of Dutch beer sales. This time, not by strength category but by other characteristics.

Dark and pale are pretty easy to pin down, as are draught and bottled. Not so sure about bitter and sweet. Pils is obviously the former and Oud Bruin the latter. Not so sure about where Lagerbier fits in. Based on the number, it looks like sweet must include Donker Lagerbier.

The obvious post-war trends were moves from dark to pale, sweet to bitter and draught to bottled. I’m shocked that pre-war dark beers accounted for almost 50% of the Dutch market. I would never have guessed that. Nor that such a high percentage of beer was sold on draught. Even in the UK, where draught was the norm, a higher percentage of beer was sold in bottled form on the 1940s.

It looks like there was a switch from drinking in the pub to drinking at home in the 1950s, something which happened in many European countries.


Dutch beer production by type 1938 - 1954 (hl)
Year Dark Pale Bitter Sweet Draught Bottled Total
1938 585,328 684,028 685,477 583,879 - - 1,269,356
1939 660,662 737,449 738,963 659,148 - - 1,398,111
1946 - - - - 1,438,471 350,935 1,789,406
1947 553,671 1,045,631 - - 1,042,101 557,201 1,599,302
1948 368,958 940,992 948,747 361,203 768,153 541,797 1,309,950
1949 230,732 776,743 780,475 227,300 574,158 433,627 1,007,785
1950 223,288 845,174 847,605 220,857 606,821 461,641 1,068,462
1951 211,405 871,248 873,595 209,058 608,210 474,443 1,082,653
1952 213,720 910,789 913,422 211,087 597,964 526,545 1,124,509
1953 237,155 1,046,593 1,049,076 234,672 645,166 638,253 1,283,419
1954 235,527 1,175,005 1,177,183 233,349 694,341 716,191 1,410,532
Source:
De Nederlandse Brouwindustrie in Cijfers, by Dr. H. Hoelen, Centraal Brouwerij Kantoor, 1955, held at the Amsterdam City Archives, page 41.

 

Dutch beer production by type 1938 - 1954 (%)
Year Dark Pale Bitter Sweet Draught Bottled
1938 46.11% 53.89% 54.00% 46.00% - -
1939 47.25% 52.75% 52.85% 47.15% - -
1946 - - - - 80.39% 19.61%
1947 34.62% 65.38% - - 65.16% 34.84%
1948 28.17% 71.83% 72.43% 27.57% 58.64% 41.36%
1949 22.89% 77.07% 77.44% 22.55% 56.97% 43.03%
1950 20.90% 79.10% 79.33% 20.67% 56.79% 43.21%
1951 19.53% 80.47% 80.69% 19.31% 56.18% 43.82%
1952 19.01% 80.99% 81.23% 18.77% 53.18% 46.82%
1953 18.48% 81.55% 81.74% 18.28% 50.27% 49.73%
1954 16.70% 83.30% 83.46% 16.54% 49.23% 50.77%
Source:
De Nederlandse Brouwindustrie in Cijfers, by Dr. H. Hoelen, Centraal Brouwerij Kantoor, 1955, held at the Amsterdam City Archives, page 41.

 

 

 


 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Was there anything actually sweet about those beers, the way a milk stout had added lactose?