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04-06-2013, 09:29
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Except the war years are missed out. For a good reason. They didn't appear in one of the tables I'm basing this on.

I spend a lot of my day looking at numbers. Sometimes they provoke me to write a few words. As in this case. I'd been harvesting various statistics about barley and hops from the Brewers' Almanack, one of my all-time favourite books. When I was busy with those for world hop production something struck me. A fact I thought was worth passing on.

I noticed it because recently I'd been messing with the figures for UK hop imports nad hop usage. The quantity of hops used in the UK was still fresh in my mind. And easy to recall because it hovered around a quarter of a million cwt. for a long tiime in the middle of the 20th century.

To be honest, I was quite surprised how high up the league table of hop producers Britain came: number 2 pre-WW II, after the USA. Down to number 3 after WW II, but pretty much neck and neck with Germany.

Combining the world production with UK usage highlighted a fascinating fact: the UK used a considerable percentage of the world's hops.




UK hop usage 1934 - 1953


year
cwt hops
world production
% used in UK


1934
248,744




1935
258,300




1937
270,692




1937
277,846




1938
286,716




average 1934-38
268,460
1,173,302
22.88%


1951
228,512
1,379,251
16.57%


1952
225,569
1,272,678
17.72%


1953
216,841
1,182,653
18.34%


Sources:


1955 Brewers'Almanack, page 63


1955 Brewers' Almanack, page 65.



As you can see, immediately before WW II, the UK used almost 23% of the world production of hops. I was surprised that it was so high. Even after WW II it was around 18%.

Knowing how much British hop usage fell after WW I - 1905 to 1914 an average of 560,549 cwts were used each year in the UK* - I can only assume that the percentage of the world crop consumed in Britain was much higher. Possibly as much as 50%. I need to find the figures for world hop production for the early years of the 20th century.

Here's the table of world hop production. The vast majority came from the four largest producers: USA, UK, Germany and Czechoslovakia.



Hops: World Production


Country
Annual Averages






1934-38
1945-1949
1951
1952
1953



cwts.
cwts.
cwts.
cwts.
cwts.


Northern Hemisphere







USA
348,009
465,455
564,634
546,991
372,786


Canada
14,393
19,170
17,339
17,920
15,179§


United Kingdom
250,205
275,768
321,821
282,348
266,000


Czechoslovakia
191,625§
90,393
98,420§
80,705§
98,420§


Germany
178,866
76,143
252,795
206,187
280,500


France
44,071
24,161
41,330
34,446
48,223


Belgium
23,741
13,527
19,366
17,062
19,179


Spain

t
t
2,607
3,661


Poland
34,884
t
t
t
t


Yugoslavia
35,509
25,179
24,652
23,652
25,589


Other European
2,643
t
t
t
t


USSR
19,687
t
t
t
t


Japan
1,286
2,196
9,054
16,241
13,286


Total
1,144,919
991,992
1,349,411
1,228,159
1,142,823


Southern Hemisphere*







Australia
20,571
21,348
18,384
31,920
28,000§


New Zealand
7,812
7,107
7,795
8,036
7,589§


Union of South Africa
t
2,018
2,482
3,384
3,125§


Argentina
t
768
1,179
1,179
1,116§


Total
28,383
31,241
29,840
44,519
39,830§


World Total
1,173,302
1,023,233
1,379,251
1,272,678
1,182,653§


* crops harvested early in the following year


t not available


§ estimate


Source:


1955 Brewers' Almanack, page 65.





* 1928 Brewers' Almanack, page 120.

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