Decline in pub licences 1905 - 1952

I managed to unearth some more figures for pub closures. I though I'd share them with you.

This particular set of figures highlights the forced closures caused by the authorities revoking licences. They appear in the "refused" columns. Pubs that closed for economic reasons are in the "Licences lapsed" column.


The decline was sharpest in the first period covered, almost 7,000 pubs at an average of just under 27 a week. The next five years were barely any better, with over 22 pubs closing each weak. Not much fewer than 12,000 pubs disappeared in just 10 years.

Things aren't quite as bad as that yet. We'll need to wait another 9 years to see if the first decades of the 21st century will be as bad for pubs as those at the start of the 20th century. I hope they aren't.

Pub closures

Time for a "putting things into perspective" post. On the topic of disappearing pubs.

Things soon get hyped up. Especially when newspapers get involved. They love throwing around terms like "unprecedented" and "never before". It applies to more than just the beer worrld, but I'm limiting myself. To just pubs.

"Pubs closing at an unprecedented rate." That's the current refrain. But how true is it? I just happen to have the figures for the number of pubs in England and Wales for the period 1900 to 2004. Let's take a look at them, shall we?

In 1900 there were 102,189 pubs in England and Wales. That's the time when local magistrates were actively trying to reduce the number of pubs. You can see just how successful they were. By 1920 there were just 83,432, a drop of 18,757. On average, just over 2.5 pubs closed every day throughout that 20 year period. While at the same time the population increased by 16%. While in 1900 there were 298 people per pub, by 1920 it was 422. So, taking into account population changes, the number of pubs fell by a massive 41%.

After 1920, the number of pubs continued to decline, but at a much slower rate. The nadir was reached in 1972, when just 63,732 remained. That's slightly more than one a day.



The next bit is what surprised me. The number of pubs then began to increase again. In 2004, the last year I've got figures for, it was up to 81,455. An increase of 17,723, a rate of 1.5 new pubs per day. All the pub losses from the 1920's to the 1970's had bee wiped out. I was gob-smacked when I realised that the number of pubs had been increasing all through my drinking life.

This graph makes the long-term trends very clear:



It's sad that many landlords are losing their businesses and their homes. But let's not get hysterical. The rate of closures isn't "unprecedented". Painful, but not unprecedented.

The rise of Pilsner

I've been researching a WW I post. About the effect of emergency legislation on beer gravity. I'm ever the populist. But it's taken longer than expected to go through all the material. So in the meantime, here's a post on Pilsner. And Denmark.

It's often assumed that immediately after it was first brewed in 1842, Pilsner swept all before. The reality is somewhat different. Yes, lager began to be brewed throughout Europe in the second half of the 19th century. But the first lagers most breweries produced weren't Pilsner. They were dark Munich-style beers. It was usually a couple of decades later that the first Pilsner was brewed. Even by the outbreak of WW I in 1914, only a small percentage of lager was Pilsner.

What seems like several decades ago at the start of my blogging career, I posted about the different types of beer produced in late 19th-century and early 20th-century Sweden. The amount of Pilsner was tiny. Now I've finally got my hands on a copy of "Danish Beer & Continental Beer Gardens" by Max Henius (published in 1913), I get bore you with similar numbers for Denmark. Here goes.


You have to remember that Denmark, led by Carlsberg and Tuborg, was in the vanguard of Pilsner brewing. Even there, it only became the biggest-selling type in 1906-1907. What's called "Lager Beer" was dark lager. Like Gammel Carlsberg, if anyone remembers that, or Tuborg Rod.

Pilsner is very much a 20th-century phenomenon. I wonder what will replace it in the 21st?

A special treat

That's exactly what you're getting today: a special treat. I've just been browsing, as you do, through that wonderful piece of light reading "Jahrbuch der Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Brauerei in Berlin, 1911".

I thought to myself "Ronald, you shouldn't keep this to yourself. You owe it to your loyal readers to post it." So, generous-spirited as ever, that's exactly what I've done. Well, not quite yet, because I'm still writing it. By the time you read this I will have done it. If you follow me.


Most revealing is the very limited amount of cross-border trade. Exports didn't get much above 1% of production in the pre-WW I period. Imports were even less significant. Contrast that with the more recent figures. In 2004 14% of production was exported.

Consumption per head, that's striking for a different reason. It's about the same now as it was 100 years ago. When people talk of a decline in beer drinking in recent years in Germany, they usually forget to point out that it was at an unusually high level in the 1970's and 1980's. The 153 litres a year it hit in 1986 was the highest ever. In 1935 consumption was only 56 litres per head. A little bit of historical perspective never hurts.

I haven't given up with posting by numbers. Oh no. There are loads more coming. I promise.

Consuption (3)

Life's full of coincidences. The latest edition of Brauwelt arrived today and guess what it contained? Details of the consumption of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks in Germany. As I doubt many of you subscribe to Brauwelt, I thought I would share the information with you.



You should bear in mind that the spirits figure are bulk and not converted to the equivalent amount of 100% alcohol like the UK figures. To compare like with like the German figures need to be divided by 3.

Let's make a comparison with the UK (for the year 2002).

Beer: UK 100.6 litres; Germany 121.9
Wine: UK 19.6 litres, Germany 24.2
Spirits: UK 1.7 litres, Germany 1.9 (adjusted as mentioned above)

See, the British aren't quite as big a bunch of drunks as everyone assumes. I am surprised how close the figures for wine consumption are. I would have guessed a much bigger lead for Germany, a major wine producer.

Thoughts on consumption

No, this post isn't going to be about TB. I think I owe you some comment on the table of consumption of alcoholic beverages in the UK I posted yesterday. I spent the whole day assembling it and had no time left over for analysis.

Beer
I'm not going to get into the Standard and Bulk barrel thing too much. Suffice it to say that average gravity before 1914 was around 1053, so there is little difference between Standard and Bulk barrel figures. (The Standard barrel was based on an OG of 1055). For the period where I don't have the Bulk barrel numbers, we can assume they are not significantly different from the Bulk barrel numbers.

Now I've got that dull introduction out of the way we can progress further.

Over the 150 year period covered, beer consumption varies between a low of 75 litres per capita in 1959 and a high of 146 in 1900. Mostly it's hovered between 90 and 120 litres. That's remarkably stable, considering the social and political upheavals that occurred. What does this tell us? The British have always rather liked beer. Now isn't that a surprise?

When it comes to other drinks, they've been far more fickle.

Spirits
Let's first take a look at spirits. High 3.06 litres in 1900, low 0.44 litres in 1949. The high is 7 times greater than the low, whereas for beer it was less than double. Consumption of spirits has gone up, it's gone down, but it's pretty much back to the level of 1914.

Wine
Wine has taken a simpler course: high 19.6 litres in 2002, low 0.41 litres in 1945. The high is a massive 48 times greater than the low. And except for a small blip during WW II (I guess not much French or Italian wine was imported in the 1940s) has risen almost continually in the 20th century.

Cider
For me, the biggest surprise is cider. Sadly I have no figures for before 1962. Like wine, the only way has been up: high 10.3 in 1999, low 1.6 in 1962. The high is 6.5 times greater than the low, but the period covered is only 40 years. I would never have guessed that. I can't say that I had noticed a huge jump in cider sales. I must have been asleep, or, more likely, just not paying attention.

Beer consumption

Nothing much has hapenned in the last 24 hours, so here, as promised, are some beer consumption statistics. It's fascinating stuff. I'll qualify that statement: fascinating for me.



In case you were wondering, the numbers for 1906 to 1954 come from “Almanach für das deutsche Brauwesen 1957” p.72. I would provide evidence of this, but my scanner's on the blink. I need to get Dolores to take a look at it (she maintains our computer systems).

What do they tell us? For the one, of the collapse in the Dutch Brewing industry in the first half of the 20th century. That the Belgians have always had a fondness for beer, but I guess you already knew that. I certainly did. Ireland, Belgium and the UK are the only countries with lower consumption today than pre- WW I. I'm not sure what significance that has. Probably none. But I thought I would mention it anyway.

Brausteuergebiet

Brausteuergebiet
I spoil you lot. I really do. I should keep this for myself. Andrew says that: "Dad, keep it to yourself." He actually says: "Dad, shut up." But I know what he really means.

A challenge. I like a challenge. I slip that into every job interview.

My wife, Dolores, is a very intelligent woman. She could have done so much better. "Why do you waste our money? What use are those stupid old books?" Good questions. Too (two) good questions. Why didn't I choose the stupid girl?

Here's my response.

What kept me sane when I lived in Australia.
Today was a family day for me. The kids wanted to go "downtown". Sure enough, they'll be selling stuff and they wanted to shop. I could make this very long, but the kids, despite promising dad an hour of "writing that rubbish", are demanding food. Next they'll be demanding clothes. Occasionally their comments are more useful. Like today in Bierkoning. "Dad, isn't that yellow beer the one you like?" Little angel, he'd remembered my affection for Cooper's Stout. Who says I'm teaching my children nothing?

Brausteuergebiet.
What is that? A product of German unification (like pig iron and dreadnoughts). It was a complicated thing. Far too complicated for you lot. Or me, for that matter. So let's not get too detailed.

In the early years of the Empire, some states retained many rights, such as taxing beer. In the Brausteuergebiet, beer taxes went to the Imperial government. It covered all of Germany except for Bavaria, Baden , Württemberg, Alsace, Lorraine and Luxemburg. In a word, The North. (Though that's technically two words, not one. I aim for 100% precision.) In two words: The North.

If you want to see where Oldenburg or Westpreussen were, there's a useful map on this page of pre-WW I German regions. It shows the big ones. Use your imagination for the rest.

The table in the image shows various stuff (sorry if I get too technical) about the brewing industry in the Brausteuergebiet in 1892/93. Each row covers a different administrative area. These are the most significant columns:

5 - total number of operational breweries
6 - number of breweries brewing top-fermenting beer
7- number of breweries brewing bottom-fermenting beer
8 - volume of top-fermenting beer brewed (hl)
9 - volume of bottom-fermenting beer brewed (hl)
10 - total volume of beer brewed (hl)
11 - percentage top-fermenting beer
12 - percentage bottom-fermenting beer

Significantly, although 64% of the breweries were top-fermenting, only 23% of the beer produced was. The average annual output for top-fermenting breweries was 1,400 hl, but for bottom-fermenting breweries 8,300 hl. (That's far too many fermentings for one paragraph. Good style dictates no more than two.) Educated guess: the top-fermenting breweries were small and old-fashioned.

Between regions there was considerable variation. In Sachsen, 41% was top-fermented. In Grossherzogtum Hessen none at all.

I can't help fiddling. It's in my nature. Which is why I've added more information to the original table, most importantly, population. (Not the one you see, I'll hasten to add. The one for my use.) It means I can make some other neat calculations, such as number of breweries per head of population. 4,700. Over the whole Brausteuergebiet, there was one brewery for every 4,700 inhabitants. Top region was Hohenzollern, with a brewery for every 300, worst Hamburg with only one for every 21,800.

I've also calculated output per head of population: 83.5 litres. Top region is again Hohenzollern with 185 litres, followed by Thüringen with 176. Worst in Oldenburg with just 37 litres.

Sad isn't it? But if you've got this far, that's one for me.

You expected more jokes, didn't you? Sorry.

Tomorrow: "No-one's interested in that crap."

Lagering and numbers

Lagering and numbers

Thank you for all your responses to this blog. Their number prevent me from immediately identifying the direction you think I should follow. Not that I would have paid any attention. But it would be nice to know if I were sucking up or pissing off. I'll assume the latter.

Lagering
"He's not going to get any laughs out of this topic." You're right. I'm not. Life isn't all about fun. It's about hardship, boredom and pain. Expect the latter two from now on.

Oh. Alright. Here's a joke. "Why did the chicken jump off the cliff?" "Because he wondered how trees felt."

I would blame Lexie for that. But it's one of Andrew's. I'm too old to understand.

Hang on. I'll just knock my brain back it to place. Ungh . . .ungh . . . ungh-angh . . . uuungh .. Yep. That's it.

Beer. I'm supposed to be talking about beer, aren't I? Activating autobiographical, abuse and random book scan modes . . . . . Generated text will appear in 3 .. 2 .. 1 .. 0 .. seconds . . .

For someone who has been a CAMRA member since his 18th birthday, I have what might be considered an unhealthy interest in lager. Not the yellow piss-water on sale in British pubs, but the real central European stuff.

Here's what "Brauerhandbuch (Karl Hennies, Nürnberg 1956, pages 282 and 283) has to say on the subject of lagering:

• Pale beers need to be lagered longer than dark beer. Only after a longer lagering period is the strong hop taste transformed into a noble bitterness. Dark beer on the other hand lose during too long a lagering their fine malt aroma. Stronger beers also demand longer lagering times than those of a lower gravity; also beer has to lager longer in cold cellars than in warm ones. Normally dark beers are lagered for one and a half to two and a half months, pale beers two to six months. Pale export beers which are unpasteurised are lagered for up to a year and very cold, so that as much protein as possible is eliminated. Beer with insufficient secondary conditioning are only lagered briefly, since longer lagering only makes the faults more obvious.
  

Modern IPA brewers should perhaps pay attention to the purpose of lagering pale beers - smoothing out the rough hop flavour. Here's a hint. If you want to brew an authentic 1842 Burton IPA, try maturing your beer for 4 months not just in wooden barrels, but also in a wooden sailing ship, making sure to vary the temperature between 5 and 50º C and to rock it around a lot. Then you have authentic. And fiddle around with the magnetic field. Maybe that doesn't have any effect. I'd still do it just to be on the safe side.

Breweries by country

Flicking through another of my old German books ("Almanch für das deutsche Brauwesen" Darmstadt, 1957 pages 56 and 57), I noticed a table of the number of breweries per country in 1956. I thought you might find it interesting if I compared it with the situation today (see image). I use the word "interesting" in a very unconventional way. I don't really believe that. People just keep saying it. I thought I should pass it on. In the sake of impartiality.

According to the book, in 1956 there was a total of 6,531 breweries in the world, 5,752 of which were in Europe. You'll be disappoinnted to hear that I can't tell you how many there are now. And I call myself Mr. Serously-unnaturally-interested-in-statistics. Or Suiis for short. Looks sort of Finnish doesn't it? Suiis Baltic Porter - I can just see the reviews on web rating sites. "A delicious black beer, but more Imperial Stout than a Baltic Porter." "Too roasty for a Porter." "Not roasty enough for a Porter." "Perfectly roasty, but too dark for a Porter." "Not dark enough, but too roasty for a Porter." I could go on. I really could.

Bugger. I said no jokes. [straightens face theatrically]

Anyone have any idea how many breweries there are today? I guess not the same.

There a couple of observations I would like to make:

1. the only countries with fewer breweries in 2006 than in 1956 are the Czech Republic, Belgium, Germany, France, Sweden and Luxemburg.
   
2. The biggest decreases are: Belgium, 563 to 124; Germany 3,218 to 1,284: Czech Republic/Slovakia, 330 to 114.
   
3. The biggest increases are: USA 305 to 1,409; Austria, 98 to 170; UK 404 to 633; Italy, 32 to 168.
   

That's it. Really. Draw your own conclusions. You try to form that unmalleable clay into .. urm . . pots of .. urm ... something else. You're on your own.

Stumbling around

I'll own up. I'm not as organised as I should be. On Sunday I wanted to write about rice beer. There was one problem: the marker had fallen out of "Zeitschrift für das gesammte Brauwesen".

I have a very simple system of keeping track of interesting tidbits of information in my books - paper bookmarks. Just pieces fo scrap paper, sometimes colour coded, sometimes with a little text scribbled on them. (I hope I'm not boring you. Skip a couple of paragrapghs. It might get better.)

Just when I needed to look it up, the one marking the article on malt substitutes in the Brausteuer Gebiet had gone walkies. As a result, I spent much of Sunday morning flicking through "Zeitschrift für das gesammte Brauwesen" looking for it. In the process I stumbled across a couple of other things I would like to share with you. Yes, they are numbers. How did you guess?

Austrian beer production
One difficulty when looking at statistics from before WW I is the way national borders have been moved around in the hundred or so years since. Austria is particularly tricky. Which is what makes the production figures on page 210 of the 1894 edition of “Zeitschrift für das gesammte Brauwesen”: they are broken down by state. Much more useful. It means I can (relatively) easily remove what no longer belongs. Let's see: Bosnia, is that part of Austria? No, I don't think so. Bascially all I need to do is strip out the bits that have recently had a civil war and hey presto, modern Austria. Or at least close enough.


While I was about it, I though that I may as well include the figures for the modern Czech Republic (Böhmen and Mähren in the table). It makes for some interesting (odd use of that word yet again) comparisons. You'll see that in in 1893 more than half of the beer produced in Austria came from what is now the Czech Republic. In fact 45% came from Bohemia alone. Secondly, whilst beer production increased 46% in present-day Austria between 1893 and 2005, in the Czech Republic it has gone up by 118%. Fascinating stuff. I could hardly sleep on Sunday night.

Attenuation in British beers in the 1890s
The next one is slightly odd. Why were the Germans so interested in the attenuation of British beers? No idea, though the article had been translated from English.

The tables do give an idea of the characteristics of typical British beers of the 1890s. Note that the Milds are stronger than all the Light Bitters and most of the Bitters. Mild didn't mean meek in those days.



Much has been said about the sweetness of 19th century Mild. I can't see any evidence for it in these figures: there is no appreciable difference in the degree of attenuation between Mild and the Bitters, nor is there a greater proportion of fermentable material left in it. But maybe I'm just looking at it the wrong way. Let me know if you can see something different.

I promised you numbers

I apologise for yesterday's post. I promised you numbers and all you got were bad jokes and dodgy photographs. I'll try to do better today.

Though today is a Barclay Perkins day, courtesy of Stonch, who provided the photo of an example of their signage.

I've just finished going through the draught Pale Ale entries in the Truman's Gravity Book (see yesterday's post for unfunny gravity jokes). Fascinating stuff. I'll be more precise: fascinating stuff for me. But as I'm only writing this blog for my own amusement, that's good enough.

These are the edited highlights, with an emphasis on beers that were still around during my drinking lifetime. (Sorry about the huge blank spaces. I haven't quite mastered this blogging yet. Keep scrolling down to find all the loverley numbers and perhaps even a crap joke.)







You'll see the effect of a big rise in duty in the early 1930s (80 shillings to 114 shillings per 36 gallon barrel). It was reversed in 1933, though it seems many drinkers switched permanently to the cheaper (and weaker) Bitters introduced to negate the effect of the tax increase. The same thing happenned with draught Mild, with Barclay Perkins introducing a new beer - XX - at the gravity their X Ale had previously been, and dropping the X down to 1035.

If you've had the patience to read all those dull statistics, I feel I owe at least one joke. This is from my younger son.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" "To get to the Burger King Fox." Don't ask me what it means. Look, I just promnised you a joke, not a good quality or even vaguely amusing one.

Not just Barclay Perkins

I'm an untidy git
We should get to know each other better. Here's where I work. The photo to the left shows my computer, piles of books and other accumulated junk that covers my desk.

Somewhere under that lot there's also a synthesiser. Don't ask me why I have a musical instrument amongst all my beer stuff. It's a long and not very interesting story. A bit like this blog, I suppose. Pointless, obscure and a little bit sad.

Of course, that isn't anything like my full book collection. It's just the ones I'm currently using.


No jokes today
I promised you bad jokes and numbers. Today it's going to be the latter.

I like to think that I know Amsterdam pretty well. As with much else, life often demonstrates just how misguided my self-belief is.

Last week whilst wandering the top end of the Oudezijd, I stumbled across an odd indoor book market of whose existence I had been blissfully ignorant. My attention was grabbed by a stall with a food and drink theme. You should be able to guess which section I headed for.

My collection of books on a beer theme grows ever larger. I have all the obvious ones and not-so-obvious ones, most of the really not obvious at all and some that are downright obscure. So I was delighted to find three books that I didn't already own. Very reasonably priced, too. I'm so used to internet shopping that I rarely enter bookshops, except to buy the Radio Times. I assume they won't have anything of interest (apart from when Dr Who will be on).

Hard leers is a great Dutch expression. There really isn't a precise English equivalent. A shame, because it describes me perfectly. I'll try to explain the meaning. If you're "hard leers", it implies not just that you're slow to learn, but actively resisit assimulating new information. I should have realised that the many second-hand bookshops of Amsterdam would have something for me.

"What were those books and where are the numbers you promised?" Don't worry. They'll be along soon. (If you're lucky, I may even throw in an unscheduled joke. I'm not promising anything, but I'm in a good mood today.) Academic books, whilst usually a bit short on humour, are often goldmines of facts. And figures. True to form, "Een Studie over de Biermarkt" ("A study of the Beer Market") by H. Hoelen isn't full of laughs. But it does have some interesting numbers.

This table won't have you rolling on the floor in uncontrolable fits of laughter. Or heartily guffawing. Let's be honest, no-one without access to nitrous oxide will crack a smile. It shows the decline in the number of Dutch breweries in the first half of the 20th century. Note the collapse around WW I, when Dutch beer production plummeted. Although not directly involved in the war, the disruption of international trade (sorry this next bit is going to be deadly serious so if you were expecting me to transform this dull sentence into a triumph of wit, you're going to be disappointed) it entailed had consequences for The Netherlands. Interruption of the supply of grain hit brewers hard.

Year	1900	1910	1920	1925	1929	1930	1931	1932	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938
No. breweries	503	440	257	219	156	148	140	136	125	123	120	117	114	98
Year	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950	1951
No. breweries	98	98	95	93	92	87	83	79	76	72	70	60	56

If that's whetted your appetite, you can find even more numbers relating to the Dutch brewing industry here.

Tomorrow
Well that should have discouraged 99% of you from ever checking this blog again. It's not going to get much better. Tomorrow, I plan revealing some choice extracts from one of my all time favourite documents, Truman's "Gravity Book". I hope you don't have a sleepless night, restless with anticipation at the prospect of the revelation of a unified field theory. It isn't that sort of gravity the book discusses. But if you ever wondered how strong draught ordinary Bitter was in 1949 and how much it cost per pint, you're in for a treat.

In case you can't wait until tomorrow, here's a quick preview. Fascinating stuff, eh? I have about 50 pages photographed. Don't worry, I'm not going to pester you with the lot. There's one that isn't all that interesting. The other 49 will keep me in blog material for the next ... er, let's work that out . . . . 47 days . . . . where's my calculator? . . . . 50 days, that's it, for the next 50 days.

You could always just look at the rambling collection of numbers and old documents I call "Beer, Ale and Malt Liquor", a title almost as bad as this blog's. Never been my thing, titles. It took me 7 or 8 years to come up with "European Beer Guide". Dys-something I guess you would call it. Sorry, rambling again. There are summaries of the Gravity Book entries for Porter, Stout, Mild and Strong Ale. If you can find them. I used the adjective rambling, but incoherent might have been more appropriate. Links would help. So I might include them tomorrow. But feel free to search yourself.


Pub of the day

Not being able to keep up with a changing world is a sure sign of age. Just call me Mr. Wrinkly. New pubs are popping up so quickly in Amsterdam that even a dedicated pub-crawler like me struggles.

Here's one - Dwaze Zaken on Prins Hendrikkade - I came across recently. It's one of a growing number of Amsterdam pubs that falls somewhere between a proper specialist beer cafe and a bog-standard boozer.

• "Am I getting old or is the city changing quicker than ever? (When I were a lad you could buy six pints of beer, a three course meal, take a taxi home and still have change from a guilder.) Dwaze Dagen - unusually, as most Zeedijk pubs are fiercely traditional - belongs to both groups one and two. Oh - I almost forgot a third group that seems to be growing in size exponentially: very expensive pubs." more
  

Expect more sightings of new places to drink in Amsterdam. I have a mission: to get 100 pubs in my Amsterdam guide. It's going well. Especially now that I've managed to get rid of my job. Loads more time to investigate. I may even have enough time to get to the Westelijke Eilanden.