UK alcohol consumption 1937 - 1960 (litres)

I thought I'd treat you to some more of those lovely numbers I recently harvested on alcohol consumption in the UK. Well, I have to do something with the buggers now I've gone to all the trouble of collecting them.

This set shows the blip that was WW II in the general decline in beer drinking between 1900 and 1960. It can be explained by a couple of reasons. First, people had more disposable income, but very little to spend it on. Then there were all the servicemen who flooded into the UK from both the Empire and the USA in the early 1940s. And, of course, the government didn't restrict beer production in the way that they had during the previous war.

I'm always shocked when I see how little cider used to be drunk. Only around the same quantity as wine per head. Cider used to be a far more regional drink, little consumed outside the rural areas where it was produced. Despite its good value due to, by some weird quirk of UK laws, being the only type of alcohol which was untaxed.

Not really a surprise that wine consumption declined during the war. Many suppliers of wine to the UK market were occupied by the Germans and importation of any goods was problematic.

I haven't finished this table at 1960 because it's a nice round date. It's when consumption finally began to increase again. As we'll see in my next post.

UK alcohol consumption 1937 - 1960 (litres)
Year	spirits	wine	beer	cider
1937	0.8	2.1	81.8
1938	0.8	2.1	86.0
1939	0.8	2.0	86.3
1940	0.8	2.0	88.8
1941	0.7	1.8	90.1
1942	0.7	0.9	103.2
1943	0.7	0.5	100.8
1944	0.7	0.4	103.0
1945	0.6	0.4	106.2
1946	0.6	0.6	111.9
1947	0.7	1.0	100.1
1948	0.7	1.3	102.0
1949	0.6	1.0	91.4
1950	0.7	1.1	87.1
1951	0.8	1.3	83.3
1952	0.6	1.3	83.4	1.9
1953	0.7	1.3	82.3	2.0
1954	0.7	1.3	81.6	1.8
1955	0.8	1.5	79.4	1.6
1956	0.8	1.6	81.1	1.8
1957	0.9	1.7	81.2	1.6
1958	0.9	1.8	80.7	1.8
1959	0.9	1.8	77.9	1.8
1960	1.0	2.0	83.9	1.8
Source
Brewers Society Statistical Handbook 1980, page 47.