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As we've been looking at beer exports, we may as well look at imports, too.

There are a couple of things to be careful about. First, it's packages rather than a volume. Secondly, just because the beer was dispatched from a port in Belgium or Holland, it doesn't necessarily mean that the beer was brewed there. Much likely came from somewhere else, most likely Germany.

Though the beer shipped from Copenhagen probably did come from Denmark. And I think it's safe to assume anything coming from New York had been brewed in the USA. I'm shocked to see that any beer at all was imported from the US. The stuff coming from Copenhagen was probably mostly Carlsberg and Tuborg.

The beer itself was probably almost all Lager. That was about all that was imported into the UK. Top-fermenting styles were provided by domestic breweries.

Note that more than half of the imports came in via London. Not really surprising: London waws a massive port and much closer to the Continent than Liverpool, Dublin or Glasgow. I'd guess that the same was also true for exports. Though maybe not to quite the same extent.

Total importations of beer into the United Kingdom:—
From London Liverpool Hull Harwich O.E Ports Dublin. Clyde &c. Total
pkgs. pkgs. pkgs. pkgs. pkgs. pkgs. pkgs. pkgs.
Hamburg 7,885 3,977 2,215 700 1,604 457 908 17,746
Bremen 20,827 1,075 1,351 - - - 3,525 27,078
Rotterdam 18,593 171 4,129 11,183 725 9,098 1,831 45,730
Antwerp 4,574 732 18 4,576 672 - 3 10,575
Amsterdam 14,718 282 5,655 - 2,754 - 3,064 26,473
Copenhagen 1,882 105 2,033 - - - 5,275 9,296
Christiania 154 - 618 - 14 - 66 852
New York 100 46 - - - - 50 195
Ostend 4,934 - - - - - - 4,934
Totals,1897 73,667 6,388 16,019 16,459 5,769 9,555 15,022 142,879
Do. 1896 53,257 10,179 13,468 14,026 4,997 8,250 14,655 129,442
Do. 1895. 55,429 11,868 11,775 17,082 4,079 8,282 14,130 122,645
Source:
"The Brewers' Journal, 1898", page 64.

Here are the numbers in bulk barrels:


UK beer imports 1895 - 1897 (bulk barrels)
1895 1896 1897
44,399 45,000 45,752
Source:
Dundee Evening Post - Monday 01 April 1901, page 2.


As 1 package seems to equate to about a third of a barrel, here's are the bulk barrels for each point of origin:


From bulk barrels
Hamburg 5915.33
Bremen 9,026
Rotterdam 15,243.33
Antwerp 3,525
Amsterdam 8,824.33
Copenhagen 3,098.67
Christiania 284
New York 65
Ostend 1,644.67

It's not a huge amount of beer.

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