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04-02-2024, 07:10
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https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj194Ik6eMRVkRuILnFV8nCYyE9N7GU7jBAEt-B_11_3yeocf3VCi2Qsc2zHdXlOWYk3iy2P0M3ET8m_BBku648d 4rqksgebLV95RnjPdku0u_ZkrQLJ1hhpEMSePJFkhZSSoh0u44 uzmWgoob-3r0GVoC7OW09P4SZ9KyxjQgGUjxupPQP7MyI8HpmFpU/w299-h400/Tennents_Lager_Beer.JPG (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj194Ik6eMRVkRuILnFV8nCYyE9N7GU7jBAEt-B_11_3yeocf3VCi2Qsc2zHdXlOWYk3iy2P0M3ET8m_BBku648d 4rqksgebLV95RnjPdku0u_ZkrQLJ1hhpEMSePJFkhZSSoh0u44 uzmWgoob-3r0GVoC7OW09P4SZ9KyxjQgGUjxupPQP7MyI8HpmFpU/s490/Tennents_Lager_Beer.JPG)
"Keg!", my book on beer in the 1970s, is just about finished. Other than adding some references and finsihing off the profiles of the Big Six breweries.At least, that's what I thought a week ago. But, since I started trawling through The Brewers' Guardian, I've changed my mind. There's so much I realise that I'd missed. Just as well I'm not in a rush to publish.
I'm reminded of a quote about putting together electronic tracks (something I did myself way back in the 1990s). Knowing when to stop was the thing. Resisting the desire to further tinker and say: "That's done". It's advice I think I should have carried over into my writing.
In the march 1970 issue of The Brewers' Guardian there's a feature on Lager made up of several articles. And they've given me a great insight into exactly why brewers were so keen on Lager in the 1970s. This pretty much sums up the motivation:
"While the beer market as a whole is only expanding by three per cent, the sales of lager have been leaping forward at a 30 per cent increase every year for the last four years."
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 39.I'd been thinking that Lager really took off in the mid-1970s, but it seems the process started a good bit earlier. Which brewer wouldn't be attracted by the possibility of 30% growth every year?
People today have mostly forgotten that, initially, Lager didn't appear very manly An important factor in its growth was a change in its image:
"Socially, the image of lager has undergone substantial change in recent years. It used to he regarded as a rather fancy expensive drink for women and young people served in an overdressed bottle at a foreign temperature. What put paid to that view was the arrival of draught lager on a large scale in the middle sixties. From being a socially exclusive drink it became, for some, the ordinary man's regular pint."
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 39.In the 1960s, then, Lager moved from being a niche product to one firmly in the mainstream. And what was one of the reasons for this change in perception? The growth of draught Lager.
"The key growth point is the sale of draught lager which is shooting away at a rate of growth of 50 per cent a year.By 1975, it is estimated that 75 per cent of all lager sold will be draught. In Scotland three out of four bars have draught lager dispensers. Lager is becoming well entrenched in the great clubs of the North and Midlands and the trend is moving south fast."
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 39.The future for Lager was looking very rosy.
"If anything in life can be assured, the demand for lager in Britain appears definite enough. Nobody knows what the percentage of the whole beer market it may be in 1980, perhaps 15 per cent, possibly nearer 20. The factors favouring growth appear convincing. In the first place, the growing number of dispensing fonts in pubs, clubs and hotels where draught is served. Even though it costs the breweries at least £65 a time to put in the whole plant and cooler, once established they tend to draw customers. Lager, as we mentioned at the beginning, is now accepted as a masculine pint, and there is an untapped market in the South of Britain waiting to be exploited. A generation of youngsters weaned on lager, perhaps first on foreign holidays, are growing up with adult thirsts. So by AD 2000 ale may well be an old man's drink."
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 40.Did Lager manage to achieve a market share of 20% by 1980? It smashed way past, hitting 30.7%.* And Ale, at least the sort that was around in the 1970s, is now an old man's drink.
* “The Brewers' Society Statistical Handbook 1988” page 17.
More... (http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2024/02/lager-boom.html)
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj194Ik6eMRVkRuILnFV8nCYyE9N7GU7jBAEt-B_11_3yeocf3VCi2Qsc2zHdXlOWYk3iy2P0M3ET8m_BBku648d 4rqksgebLV95RnjPdku0u_ZkrQLJ1hhpEMSePJFkhZSSoh0u44 uzmWgoob-3r0GVoC7OW09P4SZ9KyxjQgGUjxupPQP7MyI8HpmFpU/w299-h400/Tennents_Lager_Beer.JPG (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj194Ik6eMRVkRuILnFV8nCYyE9N7GU7jBAEt-B_11_3yeocf3VCi2Qsc2zHdXlOWYk3iy2P0M3ET8m_BBku648d 4rqksgebLV95RnjPdku0u_ZkrQLJ1hhpEMSePJFkhZSSoh0u44 uzmWgoob-3r0GVoC7OW09P4SZ9KyxjQgGUjxupPQP7MyI8HpmFpU/s490/Tennents_Lager_Beer.JPG)
"Keg!", my book on beer in the 1970s, is just about finished. Other than adding some references and finsihing off the profiles of the Big Six breweries.At least, that's what I thought a week ago. But, since I started trawling through The Brewers' Guardian, I've changed my mind. There's so much I realise that I'd missed. Just as well I'm not in a rush to publish.
I'm reminded of a quote about putting together electronic tracks (something I did myself way back in the 1990s). Knowing when to stop was the thing. Resisting the desire to further tinker and say: "That's done". It's advice I think I should have carried over into my writing.
In the march 1970 issue of The Brewers' Guardian there's a feature on Lager made up of several articles. And they've given me a great insight into exactly why brewers were so keen on Lager in the 1970s. This pretty much sums up the motivation:
"While the beer market as a whole is only expanding by three per cent, the sales of lager have been leaping forward at a 30 per cent increase every year for the last four years."
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 39.I'd been thinking that Lager really took off in the mid-1970s, but it seems the process started a good bit earlier. Which brewer wouldn't be attracted by the possibility of 30% growth every year?
People today have mostly forgotten that, initially, Lager didn't appear very manly An important factor in its growth was a change in its image:
"Socially, the image of lager has undergone substantial change in recent years. It used to he regarded as a rather fancy expensive drink for women and young people served in an overdressed bottle at a foreign temperature. What put paid to that view was the arrival of draught lager on a large scale in the middle sixties. From being a socially exclusive drink it became, for some, the ordinary man's regular pint."
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 39.In the 1960s, then, Lager moved from being a niche product to one firmly in the mainstream. And what was one of the reasons for this change in perception? The growth of draught Lager.
"The key growth point is the sale of draught lager which is shooting away at a rate of growth of 50 per cent a year.By 1975, it is estimated that 75 per cent of all lager sold will be draught. In Scotland three out of four bars have draught lager dispensers. Lager is becoming well entrenched in the great clubs of the North and Midlands and the trend is moving south fast."
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 39.The future for Lager was looking very rosy.
"If anything in life can be assured, the demand for lager in Britain appears definite enough. Nobody knows what the percentage of the whole beer market it may be in 1980, perhaps 15 per cent, possibly nearer 20. The factors favouring growth appear convincing. In the first place, the growing number of dispensing fonts in pubs, clubs and hotels where draught is served. Even though it costs the breweries at least £65 a time to put in the whole plant and cooler, once established they tend to draw customers. Lager, as we mentioned at the beginning, is now accepted as a masculine pint, and there is an untapped market in the South of Britain waiting to be exploited. A generation of youngsters weaned on lager, perhaps first on foreign holidays, are growing up with adult thirsts. So by AD 2000 ale may well be an old man's drink."
Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 40.Did Lager manage to achieve a market share of 20% by 1980? It smashed way past, hitting 30.7%.* And Ale, at least the sort that was around in the 1970s, is now an old man's drink.
* “The Brewers' Society Statistical Handbook 1988” page 17.
More... (http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2024/02/lager-boom.html)