Beer, Britain, and the First World War

The current economic crisis in the UK is bad. It's not easy being a pound (£) right now, faced with becoming weaker every day. But let's take a moment to think about the equally dire fate of the humble beer in an even worse time: that of World War. 

The First World War proved difficult for beer in the United Kingdom. Ales, porters, and stout all had to make adjustments in pursuit of victory. They had to reduce their alcohol content, their hours of sale, accept much higher taxes, and suffer other indignities. 

War leaders wanted to keep British soldiers and sailors relatively sober. In 1915 David Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions. He immediately declared that drink, not the Central Powers, was Britain's greatest enemy. "We are fighting Germans, Austrians, and drink, and as far as I can see the greatest of these deadly foes is drink." 

The men at the front may have disagreed about that, but their views like their lives, counted for very little. They could get weak French lagers on leave and a rum ration on duty. After the war, the medical officer of Scotland's 4th Black Watch Regiment told a hearing on shell shock, "Had it not been for the rum ration, I do not think we should have won the war."

Brewers were also not too happy about the restrictions placed on their product. Guinness managed to promote its beer and appear patriotic at the same time:

 

For Lloyd George, drink was if anything a greater foe at home than at the front. He and others in authority feared that drunkenness would reduce workers' productivity, depriving the military of needed war materials and supplies. 

The authorities were especially concerned about alcohol consumption among munitions workers, and for good reason. Mistakes and misbehavior in munitions plants could lead to deadly explosions and delays in production. Hundreds of munitions workers died in explosions, most of them sober women. (Image: Charles Ginner, "The Filling Factory," 1918)

Starting in 1914, various Defence of the Realm Acts (DORA) gave the government sweeping powers to control many aspects of British life, including the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic drinks. One government order prohibited "treating" or buying a round for other patrons. All drinks had to be paid for by the person consuming them. 

Some changes had long lasting effects. One order severely restricted the hours when pubs could legally serve alcohol. Opening hours were limited to the early afternoon and early evening, from 12:00 to 2:30 and 6:30 to 9:30. Violation could lead to loss of the pub's license. These restrictions remained in effect until 1988. 

Government propaganda also encouraged individuals to restrict their own drinking times, as in the poster below: 

Other orders mandated that the percentage of alcohol in beer be lowered to reduce drunkenness. The average Original Gravity (OG) of beer in England and Wales dropped significantly, from 1059 to 1029, between 1914 and 1919.

The wartime government also significantly increased the taxes on alcohol. The price of a pint roughly doubled even as its strength fell. In 1918, a bottle of whisky cost five times its price in 1914. 

The consumption of alcohol fell by about half during these years. Arrests for public drunkenness fell even more drastically. How much all these changes affected the war's outcome may be debatable, but they certainly saved some lives, and changed British social life in long-lasting ways.