May 22, 2014

Victoria brewing volumes by region, 1863

I'm still mining those articles from the last few posts and today I've got something pretty cool. Although I guess that may stretch commonly accepted definitions of cool.

I've got the weekly production numbers here for a whole bunch of regions in Victoria. It's a real luxury to have this kind of information because we're relying so heavily on newspapers rather than official reports. This is from 1863, well into the gold-rush and the population of the colony had grown from 76,000 to over 500,000 in the previous 12 years.


Region Hogsheads/week  Hectolitres/week
Bendigo 640 1568
Ballarat 500 1225
Castlemaine 500 1225
Talbot, Carisbrook, Daylesford, Lamplough 250 612.5
Inglewood, Newbridge, Loddon, Rushworth 125 306.25
Kyneton, Gisborne, Malmesbury, Kilmore 90 220.5
Geelong 100 245
Beechworth 250 612.5
Portland, Warrnambool, Port Fairy 125 306.25
Gippsland 50 122.5
Melbourne 1500 3675



Total 4130 10118.5


I guess all those miners were a thirsty lot. Over 1,000,000L a week! And that's not counting all the imported beer and ale which were really taking off in Victoria at this stage.

The brewers were brewing ale and porter and Thomas Moulden, the author, notes that the brewers in Bendigo tended to brew stronger ale than in the other regions.

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