Dutch expenditure on alcohol

Look, it's a holiday weekend. I've just stuck my hand into my bag of Dutch beer statistics and plucked out this one. 

I still need to take a post Sunday dinner walk while the sun is shining. Which it's only done for 5 minutes in the past fortnight. The cloud has been so low, I couldn't even see the planes coming in to land at Schiphol. Usually you can wave to the pilot, they're that close to the ground.

On with today's dull set of numbers. Starting with a caveat. These raw numbers don't take into account inflation. They don't tell us anything about the volume of beer being consumed. Hang on. I have the consumption numbers for some of the period. I can work out the average price per litre.

I don't have the consumption figures to hand for much of the pre-war period. But I'd guess the price was pretty constant in the 1930s. Unsurprisingly, it shoots up after the war. Though some of it is explained by a switch from Lagerbier to the more expensive Pils.

I'm fascinated by the balance between beer and spirits, as it swings from the latter to the former between the wars. Then back again ending up in just about equilibrium.

Dutch expenditure on alcohol (millions of guilders)
	all alcoholic drinks	beer	spirits	wine	consumption (hl)	price per litre (guilders)
1923	167	47	59	36
1924	170	50	55	40
1925	173	51	53	44
1926	175	53	53	44
1927	178	53	53	47
1928	186	59	55	47
1929	173	60	44	44
1930	170	60	39	46
1931	170	56	47	42
1932	149	48	44	32
1933	137	43	39	30
1934	127	40	35	27
1935	121	36	33	27
1936	117	33	33	26
1937	120	33	33	29	1,295,116	0.25
1938	124	35	35	29	1,422,923	0.25
1939	150	38	35	32	1,602,662	0.24
1947	247	80	-	-	1,310,470	0.61
1948	300	73	-	-	1,008,805	0.72
1949	291	67	-	-	1,069,431	0.63
1950	290	71	-	-	1,087,868	0.65
1952	-	148	-	-	1,155,647	1.28
1953	-	168	-	-	1,295,376	1.30
1954	-	184	-	-	1,433,577	1.28
Source:
De Nederlandse Brouwindustrie in Cijfers, by Dr. H. Hoelen, Centraal Brouwerij Kantoor, 1955, held at the Amsterdam City Archives, pages 31 and 46.