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21-07-2013, 08:16
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I told you I had more hop numbers. I just had to rummage around in the nether regions of my spreadsheets to find them.

The title is pretty self-explanatory. I've taken the figures I have for beer production and hop usage, nailed them loosely together and calculated the average quantity of hops used per barrel of beer produced. And I've thrown in the OG and ounces of hops per gravity point so the effect of gravity changes can be removed.

I think it's a pretty nifty table. Especially as it tells me something unexpected. Or rather confirms soemthing I was reluctant to believe. Remember those hop numbers from Barth Reports? There was one set that showed average hopping rates for various countries. I was sceptical of the UK ones, because it showed the hopping rate after WW I as higher than before it. That couldn't possibly be true, could it? Average OG had declined abourt 25% so logic would demand that the hopping rate had undergone a similar fall. Not true at all.

What makes that increase in hopping even more surprising, is that the price of hops had more than quadruples between 1914 and 1920:




Price of English hops per cwt.



£ s. d.


1914
4 3 9


1916
6 14 0


1918
18 15 0


1920
19 10 0


Source:


Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 63.



Here's another way of looking at it:




Fall in OG and hopping 1914 - 1920



1914
1920
% fall


Average OG
1052.15
1039.41
24.43%


Average hops per barrel
1.73
1.62
6.36%


Sources:


Brewers' Almanack 1928, p. 110


1914: 1953 Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 62



OG fell 24% but the hopping rate only by 6.%. I'd like to explain it, but have absolutely no idea why this happened.

Surprisingly, the hopping rate per gravity point stayed at close to the 1914 level for most of the 1930's. Not at all what I would have expected.

Here's the full table:




UK hopping rates 1914 - 1939


year
bulk barrels
hops
lbs hops per barrel
Average OG
oz. hops per gravity point


1914
36,162,273
559,423
1.73
1052.15
0.53


1920
34,776,258
503,140
1.62
1039.41
0.66


1922
27,815,249
398,506
1.60
1042.88
0.60


1924
25,927,783
350,428
1.51
1043.04
0.56


1926
25,987,830
355,375
1.53
1043.23
0.57


1928
24,981,731
330,662
1.48
1043.17
0.55


1930
24,488,629
307,289
1.41
1042.90
0.52


1931
22,561,497
277,406
1.38
1042.50
0.52


1932
18,864,711
219,587
1.30
1041.04
0.51


1933
18,931,185
222,868
1.32
1039.52
0.53


1934
20,378,879
233,419
1.28
1040.99
0.50


1935
21,598,179
248,744
1.29
1041.06
0.50


1936
22,207,859
258,300
1.30
1041.02
0.51


1937
23,608,658
270,592
1.28
1041.10
0.50


1938
24,339,360
277,846
1.28
1041.02
0.50


1939
25,691,217
285,715
1.25
1040.93
0.49


Sources:


Brewers' Almanack 1928, p. 110


Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50


Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 62



Next time we'll be seeing what happened during and after WW OO.




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