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03-08-2014, 08:10
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I was really pleased when someone on BeerAdvocate pointed me in the direction of some Austro-Hungarian beer statistics. Something I can never get enough of.

It's confirmed something I'd suspected: that the strength of Austrian beer - in particular that of Vienna - fell towards the end of the 19th century. Confirmation not so much of the fact but of the date. You just have to look at the gravity of modern Austrian Märzen. It's in the range 11.5º to 12.5º Plato. In the 1870's, they were closer to 14º Plato*.

A word of warning: this is going to be a table-heavy post. Just how I like them. Words are very overrated. That may sound a little odd coming from someone who's always dreamed of being a writer. (Though I am the person with not one but two books without any complete sentences other than the copyright notice.) But some things - like the trends in beer strength we're looking at today - are much easier to explain through the medium of numbers.

The 1860's had been boom time for Vienna beer, with Dreher's Schwechat brewery leading the way. Vienna Lager became all the rage after it was exposed to a wider audience at the Paris International Exhibition of 1867. For a while it became dead trendy and was the first Lager to be regularly sold in London. But the good times don't seem to have lasted that long. There was soon competition in the form of first Bavarian and then Bohemian Lager.

The Schwechat beer that introduced London to Lager was quite strong, with a gravity of 1062º, which 15.2º Balling. It sounds more like an Export than a Märzen, if you ask me. This was probably stronger than the beer usually sold in Vienna.

I was surprised to see beer production falling in Vienna after 1874. But then I looked at the figures for the whole of Austria-Hungary and noticed the same downwards trend. So I thought I'd see what percentage of the total came from Vienna. It shows that proportional less was being brewed in Vienna, falling from just under 24% to almost 21%. I wonder what the reason was? Were Viennese breweries starting to come under pressure in export markets?

Here are the figures:



Austrian beer production 1870 - 1881


Year
Austria
Vienna
% Vienna


1865
7,295,000
1,423,142
19.51%


1870
9,304,000




1871
10,028,000




1872
11,445,000




1873
12,685,000




1874
11,744,000
2,777,403
23.65%


1875
11,536,000
2,740,314
23.75%


1876
11,671,000
2,494,981
21.38%


1877
11,101,000
2,251,150
20.28%


1878
10,815,000
2,424,361
22.42%


1879
10,707,000
2,230,791
20.83%


1880
10,530,000
2,253,688
21.40%


1881
11,530,000
2,393,319
20.76%


Sources:


"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.


“Bericht über der Welt_Ausstellung zu Paris im Jahre 1867, volume 7”, 1868, page 126.


European Statistics 1750-1970 by B. R. Mitchell, 1978, page 283.



Now onto the real point of all this: looking at the change in gravity of the beer brewed in Vienna. First broken down by degree Balling in hectolitres:




Beer production of the 25 breweries in the Vienna area by degree Balling (hl)


Year
9
10
11
12
13
14
15 and 16
total


1874
800
1,402,591
67,893
106,131
808,084
231,643
86,199
2,777,403


1875
780
1,442,171
68,928
89,259
776,354
239,718
76,164
2,740,314


1876
11,090
1,413,268
35,583
86,854
725,097
127,342
53,525
2,494,981


1877
3,025
1,283,028
67,092
97,007
625,943
99,224
40,590
2,251,150


1878
150
1,451,560
147,546
35,285
496,750
100,252
47,386
2,424,361


1879
630
1,324,738
173,814
15,486
517,127
106,260
56,166
2,230,791


1880
884
1,497,766
107,628
10,066
600,588
78,326
60,290
2,253,688


1881
85
1,546,523
124,448
42,458
564,576
74,339
52,290
2,393,319


Source:


"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.




Next by percentage:



Beer production of the 25 breweries in the Vienna area by degree Balling (%)


Year
9
10
11
12
13
14
15 and 16
total


1874
0.03%
50.50%
2.44%
3.82%
29.09%
8.34%
3.10%
97.33%


1875
0.03%
52.63%
2.52%
3.26%
28.33%
8.75%
2.78%
98.29%


1876
0.44%
56.64%
1.43%
3.48%
29.06%
5.10%
2.15%
98.31%


1877
0.13%
56.99%
2.98%
4.31%
27.81%
4.41%
1.80%
98.43%


1878
0.01%
59.87%
6.09%
1.46%
20.49%
4.14%
1.95%
94.00%


1879
0.03%
59.38%
7.79%
0.69%
23.18%
4.76%
2.52%
98.36%


1880
0.04%
66.46%
4.78%
0.45%
26.65%
3.48%
2.68%
104.52%


1881
0.004%
64.62%
5.20%
1.77%
23.59%
3.11%
2.18%
100.48%


Source:


"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.



Output of 13º beer fell from 29% of the total to 23.5%. 14º beer fared even worse, declining from 8.3% to 3.1%. Surprisingly, output of 12º beer fell by more than 50%. The big winners were 10º beer, up from 50.5% to 64.6% and 11º beer, which went from 2.4% to 5.2%.

(Yes, I realise the percentages don't add up properly. The totals in the original document aren't the sum of the columns. I've just used them as is.)

Grouping the beers into 9º to 12º and 13º to 16º is even more revealing:



Vienna output in two strength groups (hl)


Year
9 to 12
13 to 16
total


1874
1,577,415
1,125,926
2,703,341


1875
1,601,138
1,092,236
2,693,374


1876
1,546,795
905,964
2,452,759


1877
1,450,152
765,757
2,215,909


1878
1,634,541
644,388
2,278,929


1879
1,514,668
679,553
2,194,221


1880
1,616,344
739,204
2,355,548


1881
1,713,514
691,205
2,404,719


Source:


"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.





Vienna output in two strength groups (%)


Year
9 to 12
13 to 16
total


1874
58.35%
41.65%
100%


1875
59.45%
40.55%
100%


1876
63.06%
36.94%
100%


1877
65.44%
34.56%
100%


1878
71.72%
28.28%
100%


1879
69.03%
30.97%
100%


1880
68.62%
31.38%
100%


1881
71.26%
28.74%
100%


Source:


"Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie 1882", Dr. Ferdinand Fischer, 1883, page 871.




The stronger beers declined from 41.7% to 28.7% of the total.

I wouldn't have been surprised at that percentage of 10º being brewed in Bohemia and Moravia, but I hadn't expected it of Vienna. You learn something every day.

There will be more tables of Autro-Hungarian statistics to follow. How appropriate for the WW I centenary.









* "Theory and Practice of the Preparation of Malt and the Fabrication of Beer" Julius E. Thausing, Anton Schwartz and A.H. Bauer, Philadelphia 1882, pages 748-751

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