GERMAN BEER-DRINKING.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9027, 9 March 1891, Page 4

GERMAN BEER-DRINKING.

A very curious document has just been published. It is a report on the production and consumption of beer in Berlin in the year 1883. There were sixty-nine breweries :n the city, and theso produced in the twelve months rather more than 57,000,000 gallons of liquor. It must not be all called beer, for much of it, according to the report, was produced without the agency of either malt or hops ; sugar and quassia, and even worse, tuking the -place of the old-fashioned and more wholesome materials. The annual consumption per head of the population was 308 pints, or 39 pints more than in 1883. It may be taken for granted that' in Berlin a quarter of the population consists of children of tender years, -who drink no beer at all ; that, of the remainder, one-half consists of women, of whom not more than fifty per cent, ever touch beer in any considerable quantity ; and, that, consequently, all the beer is practically consumed by seventwelfths of the people. The number of pints of beer drunk in 18S8 in Berlin was 446,600,000 ; the population was 1,450,000 ; and seven-twelfths of the population equalled, say, 845,850 souls. Each of these thirsty souls, therefore, must have consumed on the average about 550 pints, or nearly a pint and a half a day. And, when it is borne in mind that, even among Germans, many men abstain frcm beer altogether, it must be admitted that tho figures are pretty high. Fhe value of the beer consumed was, it May be added, two and a quarter millions tierling.