466 THE BREWING INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 



the character of the beer is mainly determined by the skill with which the 

 brewer conducts the varied and complicated processes of brewing, but it 

 may be fairly stated that, in the words used by Mr. Combrune, 140 years ago, 

 in his letter to the Royal Dublin Society, which has been already quoted, 

 " the foundation of brewing good beer is good malt," and the quality of the 

 malt depends primarily upon the nature of the barley used. 



The amount of barley grown in the United Kingdom in the year 1901 was 

 67,638,339 bushels, and the amount imported was 



The Barley Crop 49,485,027 bushels. A very small quantity was ex- 

 of the ported, and consequently the quantity of barley used 



United Kingdom, m the United Kingdom in 1901 was about 117,000,000 

 bushels. The official returns show that over 

 57,000,000 bushels of malt were used in making beer during the year ended 

 30th September, 1901, and, as a bushel of barley generally produces about 

 a bushel of malt, nearly one half of the total amount of barley grown in or 

 imported into the United Kingdom was used for making beer, the remainder 

 mainly going into the ordinary consumption or being employed for seed or 

 in making whiskey. 



The outstanding feature in the agricultural economy of Ireland during the 

 The Brewing P^^^ ^^^^ years has been, of course, the conversion of 

 °. tillage land into pasturage. Whilst barley has shared 

 Industry and Irish ^^ ^^^ general shrinkage of crops, it has done so in a 

 Barley. \q^c, degree than any other corn crop, in 1855 there 



were 226,629 acres under barley, and in 1900 the area under that crop had 

 fallen to 161,534 acres, a decrease of 28 per cent., but during the same period 

 the acreage under oats and wheat decreased by over 48 and 90 per cent, re- 

 spectively. There can be no doubt that the steadiness exhibited by barley as 

 compared with oats and wheat is chiefly due to the increase in brewing, for, 

 as will be seen from the figures below, over half the barley grown in Ireland 

 finds its way into Irish breweries. A remarkable proof of the close con- 

 nection existing between barley growing and brewing is found in the fact 

 that barley is, generally speaking, grown only in the brewing districts. 

 Brewing has never been a really flourishing industry in the North of Ireland 

 or Connaught, and it is accordingly significant to note that Ulster and Con- 

 naught have respectively but 3 and 2 per cent, of the total barley area 

 of Ireland, although the former is the great tillage province. Practically 

 all the great Irish breweries, past or present, would he wdthin the triangle 

 formed by Waterford and Cork as the extremities of the base and Dundalk 

 as the apex. Last year the only counties in Ireland in which over 10,000 

 acres were under barley were Wexford (31,360 acres), Kilkenny (19,102 

 acres), Queen's (18,373), Cork (17,109), Tipperary (17,020), Louth (14,345), 

 King's (14,271), and Kildare (10,498). It is, of course, true that the location 

 of many of the country breweries may have been determined, to some 

 extent, by the reputation of their neighbourhoods as barley-growing centres, 

 but still it is evident that the brewing industry exercises an important 

 influence upon barley-growing and so tends to keep the land under cultiva- 

 tion and to keep the people at home. 



The amount of barley grown in Ireland in 1901 was 6,530,716 bushels, 

 whilst the quantity of malt used in making beer was 5,978,696 bushels, so 

 that the amount of barley used by brewers was not much less than the entire 

 yield of Irish barley-fields. All the barley grown in Ireland is not, however, 

 used for the production of beer ; some is not suitable for malting, and a con- 



