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Numbers. numbers, numbers. It's been a while since I did a totally number-based post. As usual, it's something I tripped over while searching for something else.

I was trying to find out what varieties of hops were grown on the West Coast of the USA around 1900. Someone helfully pointed me at a couple of books on the internet. One of which had some lovely numbers. About beer production and hop consumption.

I realised that there was some interesting information that could be derived from these statistcs. The original table only contains the first four columns. I've calculated the others myself. What I find of particular interest is how many hops were being consumed in the UK.

600,000 zentners (a zentner is 50 kg) were consumed in the UK. Slightly more than in the whole rest of Europe. Even though the UK produced approximaately half a s much beer as the continent. The explanation is simple: British beer was for more heavily hopped: 0.76 kg. per hl. as opposed to 0.39 kg.

Everywhere else in Europe, hopping rates were much lower. Even the place with the highest, Bavaria, was way behind the UK with only 0.46 kg. per hl. Surprisingly, the only country to come close is the USA, at 0.70 kg per hl. Though perhaps that shouldn't be such a shock as considerable quantities of British-style beers were still being brewed in the USA.

Hop consumption and beer production in 1882
Countries Hop Consump-tion. Centner. Annual Beer Production. Hectoliter. Annual Beer Consumption. Per Capita. kg. hops per hl. % of total hops consumed % total beer production
North Germany 150,000 21,136,000 61 0.35 10.81% 16.47%
Bavaria 112,000 12,153,000 426 0.46 8.07% 9.47%
Austria- Hungary 98,000 12,212,000 30 0.40 7.06% 9.52%
Belgium 65,000 7,866,000 154 0.41 4.68% 6.13%
France 53,000 7,125,000 24 0.37 3.82% 5.55%
Wurtemberg 31,000 4,197,000 212 0.37 2.23% 3.27%
Russia 25,000 2,863,000 4 0.44 1.80% 2.23%
Netherlands 10,000 1,452,000 40 0.34 0.72% 1.13%
Denmark 9,000 1,140,000 60 0.39 0.65% 0.89%
Baden 8,000 1,086,000 67 0.37 0.58% 0.85%
Sweden 7,000 930,000 21 0.38 0.50% 0.72%
Alsace-Lorraine 6,000 789,000 48 0.38 0.43% 0.61%
Norway 5,000 615,000 28 0.41 0.36% 0.48%
Switzerland 5,000 724,000 30 0.35 0.36% 0.56%
Other States 4,000 533,000 1 0.38 0.29% 0.42%
Continent 588,000 74,821,000 0.39 42.36% 58.30%
England 600,000 39,250,000 118 0.76 43.23% 30.58%
Europe 1,188,000 114,071,000 0.52 85.59% 88.89%
America 200,000 14,261,000 19 0.70 14.41% 11.11%
total 1,388,000 128,332,000 0.54 100.00%
Source:
"Hop Culture in the United States" by E. Meeker, 188w, E. Meeker & Co., page 135.



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