Friday 7 January 2022

Dutch hop imports 1937 - 1954

Even more boring old numbers. Don't worry. I've still plenty more to annoy you with.

Fascinating to see the source of Dutch hops. I had the impression that far more hops were imported from Germany in the 1930s. But that's based on what I've seen in Heineken brewing records, where the hops seem to be about 50-50 split between Germany and Czechoslovakia. Clearly, they weren't typical. As the the majority of hops were imported from Czechoslovakia.

While after the war it really was Germany which dominated imports. I can understand why Czech imports might have been interrupted in 1949 when the communists took over. But it's less easy to understand why that should have hung over into the 1950s.

As a neighbouring country and one of the biggest hop producers in the world, it's no real shock that Germany should have been Holland's main hop supplier. Interesting that the UK supplied so many hops in 1951. Then very few from 1953 onwards.

Dutch hop imports 1937 - 1954 (tonnes)
Country 1937 1938 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954
Germany 28 62 216          
West Germany       208 206 98 173 231
Czechoslovakia 289 165 4 17 71 71 26 107
Poland 17 72            
Yugoslavia 37 30   7 22 67 69 63
UK     2 65 134 49 10 4
Belgium/Lux.       18 9 8 13 5
France         2 11 19  
USA         3 30 5 11
Total 389 345 223 315 447 334 314 424
Source:
De Nederlandse Brouwindustrie in Cijfers, by Dr. H. Hoelen, Centraal Brouwerij Kantoor, 1955, held at the Amsterdam City Archives, page 14.

 

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's interesting to me that after the Soviet takeover there were a lot of hops coming from Czechoslovakia but not East Germany. Do they not grow much in that part of Germany, or did the domestic market just absorb all of the demand?

Ron Pattinson said...

Anonymous,

when the DDR was first formed in the 1940s no hops were grown in its territory. To remove its dependence on imported hops, they restarted hop-growing in, I think Sachsen. Or maybe Sachsen-Anhalt.