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.