Heineken (Rotterdam) output in 1941

It's taking me rather longer than expected to note down every brew Heineken brew in Rotterdam 1939 to 1943. Literally as much fun as it sounds. That is, none at all. Pretty sure it will be worth it.Pretty sure, but not totally.

In 1941, they brewed quite a lot of beer still - over 300,000 hl.I assume that they brewed a similar amount in Amsterdam. At an average OG of 8.1º Plato, isn't too bad. Bit look at the trend: downwards, finishing at under 6º Plato at the end of the year. To put that onto context, average UK OG in 1941 was 1038.5º - that's about 9.6º Plato. In just a few months, Heineken's beer had gone from being about as strong as that in the UK to being watery piss.

It's more beer than they manged to brew more than the previous year's 306,919 hl.* Not that bad a result, I suppose, 324,849 hl. in 1941. The trend did look to be downwards, with December output the lowest for the whole year.

Heineken (Rotterdam) output in 1941
Month	Year	hl.	gravity points	Average OG Plato
Jan	1941	42,347	390,432	9.2
Feb	1941	29,032	259,061	8.9
Mar	1941	37,632	347,112	9.2
Apr	1941	18,974	187,464	9.9
May	1941	20,572	203,422	9.9
Jun	1941	27,629	267,291	9.7
Jul	1941	39,629	297,548	7.5
Aug	1941	29,863	195,022	6.5
Sep	1941	23,010	157,429	6.8
Oct	1941	20,524	127,905	6.2
Nov	1941	19,916	114,759	5.8
Dec	1941	15,721	92,089	5.9
total		324,849	2,639,534	8.1
Source:
Heineken brewing record held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document number 834 - 1760.

* Heineken brewing record held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document number 834 - 1759.

 

Best father's day present ever

This:

 

 And the bottle of vodka.

 

 

World beer production in 1913, 1920, 1929—1934

Some more lovely numbers from that Polish trade journal. I hope you enjoy them as mush as I do.

Just a couple of observations. I'm struck by how high up the list Belgium comes. For such a small country, ranking fifth in the world (as it did in both 1913 and 1934)  in terms of beer production is very impressive. Also note how far down the list the Netherlands is, producing not much more than 10% of what Belgium did.

Beer production fell almost everywhere after 1930, doubtless as a result of the worldwide recession. Also in just about every European country output was lower in 1934 than in 1913. One country which did show impressive growth was Japan, going from 100,000 hl in 1913 to almost 1.75 million hl in 1934.

It's weird that in some years more beer was brewed in tiny Luxembourg than in Mexico.

World beer production in 1913, 1920, 1929—1934 (1,000 hl)
Country	1913	1920	1929	1930	1931	1932	1933	1934
USA	76,655	9,384	8,000	28,000	25,000	25,000	39,135	50,248
Germany	69,200	25,618	57,028	48,486	37,093	33,581	34,132	36,838
United Kingdom	58,805	44,822	31,789	30,770	26,788	21,639	23,414	25,388
Austria	22,709	600	5,275	5,083	4,385	3,058	2,522	2,419
Belgium	16,727	10,407	15,377	16,662	18,377	15,558	14,400	13,800
France	12,844	11,548	17,555	18,314	18,577	17,627	17,700	16,743
Czechoslovakia	—	3,874	12,162	11,410	10,380	9,648	7,964	7,990
Russia')	10,138	—	2,000	3,000	4,510	3,000	3,700	3,700
Ireland	—	—	3,480	3,663	3,129	2,779	2,941	2,924
Australia	2,936	2,852	3,350	3,025	2,529	2,265	2,387	—
Switzerland	2,969	1,068	2,541	2,610	2,621	2,526	2,419	2,465
Sweden	2,706	2,021	2,052	2,982	2,835	2,806	2,418	2,429
Poland	—	—	2,786	2,516	1,931	1,400	1,058	1,102
Denmark	2,465	2,374	2,118	2,291	2,212	2,005	2,023	2,161
Canada	2,353	1,680	2,793	2,653	2,100	1,950	1,707	—
Netherlands	1,780	1,200	2,273	2,316	2,280	2,103	1,609	1,513
Argentina	1,000	1,493	1,981	2,132	1,828	1,158	1,308	1,344
Brazil	700	819	1,766	1,766	1,456	850	900	925
Italy	673	949	1,127	902	718	397	339	372
Hungary	—	491	602	446	312	184	165	167
Yugoslavia	—	600	600	600	540	319	215	210
Norway	515	894	509	525	417	425	398	401
Mexico	500	300	680	720	719	418	520	673
Luxembourg	—	—	525	563	496	426	407	423
Chile	490	413	520	494	371	367	390	444
New Zealand	454	—	582	580	523	444	401	402
Japan	100	1,250	1,600	1,633	1,368	1,379	1,688	1,747
Romania	314	169	867	632	418	418	358	433
Finland	—	—	333	424	335	296	292	346
South Africa	300	350	349	323	314	273	270	327
Spain	310	302	744	794	744	719	632	749
Cuba	255	200	402	204	158	160	173	233
Bulgaria	166	139	84	51	48	91	60	46
India	170	161	118	95	88	81	69	—
Latvia	—	—	95	89	71	62	62	76
Lithuania	—	—	101	115	113	72	70	60
Turkey	97	100	40	41	36	32	23	22
Estonia	—	—	89	69	58	52	60	51
China	80	61	60	96	83	101	98	105
Uruguay	79	89	190	152	147	120	103	116
Peru	65	156	130	144	104	70	69	88
Ecuador	55	57	82	80	60	47	53	65
Colombia	55	85	315	200	130	142	200	375
Egypt	52	70	73	57	49	39	45	53
Bolivia	50	98	82	66	49	42	46	46
Gdansk	—	—	—	—	48	77	74	81
Portugal	40	56	100	83	59	56	59	55
Philippines	38	54	40	40	40	40	40	35
Algiers	35	35	100	140	140	108	113	91
Venezuela	35	30	150	111	118	65	71	55
Panama.	30	50	75	81	91	88	75	68
Belgian Congo	—	—	22	32	22	13	13	13
Paraguay	28	24	19	19	12	10	10	7
Greece	25	30	69	95	85	66	54	77
San Salvador	—	—	20	20	16	22	24	24
Costa Rica	—	—	18	15	12	10	14	11
Guatemala	15	10	30	11	10	7	9	8
Source:
Przegląd Piwowarsko-Słodowniczy: organ Związku Piwowarów w Polsce 1935 wrzesień R.1 Nr1, page 14.

 

 

Let's Brew - 1940 Heineken Pils

During the war Heineken got up to some weird shit. Starting in November 1940. You can’t really blame them. Circumstances were beyond their control.

For the first months of the German occupation, Heineken continued much as before the war. The changes kicked off a week into November, when rice was dropped from the grist. The gravity had been reduced a touch towards the end of October, dropping from 11.8º Plato to 11.5º Plato. Not such a big deal.

The dramatic change happened on 17th November, when the gravity went back up to 11.8º Plato, but in was watered down with boiling water in the cooler to 10º Plato. It was the first in a series of dramatic changes which occurred in late 1940 and 1941. At least it was still just about 4% ABV.

I’ve not much idea what the hops were, other than mostly German. One is described as “A”, which could stand for Auscha, a Czech hop region.

1940 Heineken Pils
pilsner malt	8.75 lb	100.00%
Hallertau 90 mins	0.125 oz
Hallertau 60 mins	0.50 oz
Saaz 30 mins	0.67 oz
OG	1039
FG	1010
ABV	3.84
Apparent attenuation	74.36%
IBU	15
SRM	3
Mash double decoction
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	48º F
Yeast	WLP830 German Lager

Mash in at 35º C (95º F)	5 minutes
Warm whole mash to 52º C (126º F)	20 minutes
Rest whole mash at 52º C (126º F) (protein rest)	15 minutes
Draw off first mash and without a rest bring to the boil	30 minutes
Boil first mash	10 minutes
The rest of the mash remains at 52º C (126º F)	40 minutes
Mash at 70º C (158º F)	25 minutes
Rest whole mash at 70º C (158º F) (saccharification rest)	30 minutes
Draw off second mash and without a rest bring to the boil	15 minutes
Boil second mash	10 minutes
Mash at 76º C (169º F) and mash out	20 minutes

 

 

 

Heineken (Rotterdam) hops in 1940

I’m afraid that the hops will be more confusing than revealing. A combination of poor handwriting, odd abbreviations and my lack of comprehension leave me mostly guessing wildly at to what they might be.

I’m only certain about the last two entries in the table. They’re definitely Hallertau. A could stand for Auscha, a hop-growing region in Czechoslovakia. In which case they would be something akin to Saaz. By this point, of course, Czechoslovakia was also occupied by the Hermans. As for Bacha, I’ve absolutely no clue.

Before the war, Heineken seemed to use mostly German hops which meant little changed after the outbreak of war. It would have been a different matter had they been accustomed to employing English or American hops.

Heineken (Rotterdam) hops in 1940
Date	Beer	Style	hop 1	hop 2
14th Nov	Do	Donker Lagerbier	Be LA 1939	Bacha 1939
8th Nov	Li	Licht Lagerbier	?? 1939	Bacha 1939
8th Nov	P	Pils	A 1938	A 1939
8th Nov	Bei	Münchener	H 1939
10th Jul	Bok	Bok	Barth Ha 1939
Source:
Heineken brewing record held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document number 834 - 1759.

 

Belgian brewing 1929 - 1935

I'm sticking with my favourite Polish trade magazine, Which is certainly delivering in terms of numbers. Lovely, tempting numbers. Drawing me away from what I should really be doing, the seductive little devils.

As you should have guessed from the title, these statistics are for Belgian brewing. Let's see what they tell us.

Belgium had a shitload of breweries between the wars. 1,631 might sound impressive, but that's way down on before WW I. Back then there were more than 3,300. It was the war that did for many of them. The Germans knicked most copper vessels to make munitions and many small breweries simply never reopened. I guess many didn't have the capital to replace the equipment.

The effect of the Wall Street Crash and the recession which followed it is clear to read in the production figures. With a steep decline after 1931. A drop in sales seems to have reversed the trend in output per brewery increasing. An average of around 10,000 hl is very low. If you look in the second table, you'll see that in the UK the average was almost treble that.

The trends in the UK were very similar to in Belgium - really bad sales in 1932 and 1933, with a slight improvement in 1934. You can see that a high percentage of the beer imported into Belgium came from the UK.

Belgian brewing 1929 - 1935
year	number of breweries	production in 1000 hl.	imports 1000 hl.	exports 1000 hl.	consumption in 1000 hl.	output per brewery hl
1929	1,631	15,377	196	19	15,553	9,536
1930	1,556	16,662	228	10	16,880	10,848
1931	1,494	18,377	212	10	18,579	12,436
1932	1,484	15,558	156	8	15,707	10,584
1933	1,457	14,667	113	6	14,774	10,140
1934	1,372	14,717	95	5	14,806	10,792
1935			92	7
Source:
Przegląd Piwowarsko-Słodowniczy: organ Związku Piwowarów w Polsce 1936 wrzesień R.2 Nr3, page 67.

UK brewing 1930 - 1935
year	number of breweries	production hl.	output per brewery hl	exports to Belgium hl
1930	1,418	41,015,395	28,925	129,841
1931		39,113,784		134,414
1932	1,286	34,025,411	26,458	106,884
1933		29,376,748		85,428
1934	1,197	33,029,558	27,594	60,270
1935	1,144	34,146,520	29,848	58,203
Sources:
Brewers' Almanack 1955 p.68
Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50
BBPA Statistical Handbook 2003, p. 92
Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 57.