The brewers' guilds, where such organizations existed, were the logical insti
tutions for asking for tax relief from their towns. Brewers in unorganized
towns did not hesitate to petition for improvements, however. Their requests
took many forms. They often pointed to the many taxes they paid and then
noted that competitors in other nearby jurisdictions paid less. It was that
which made brewers in the Generality Lands, that part of Brabant adminis
tered directly by the States General, the special target of complaint in Zee-
land. If one thing is obvious it is that brewers were conscious of the taxes
they had to pay and of the taxes others did nol have to pay. They monitored
the rules in nearby towns and provinces70 and were ready to use that informa
tion to lobby governments.
Other than increased regulation another strategy which brewers piirsued to
survive in the face of declining sales was diversification. By integrating other
tasks into brewing they could raise the productivity of their capital and so
make it more appealing to investors. The easiest thing was to set up or buy a
maltery and perhaps a mill, integrating vertically as they moved back along
the production process. They could, as in one case at Flushing, buy a maltery
and brewery in England to take grain preparation away from higher local
costs and closer to what had become the principal source of supply71. Such
strategies were rare, however. They also rarely worked.
Since heat and moving it around were both bad for beer, shipping it to the
tropics created a great risk of spoilage. Higher alcohol content was the usual
way to try to stave off trouble72. Flushing even set up regulations specifically
to cover beer brewed for shipment to the East Indies on board vessels of the
East India Company. Two thousand barrels were to go out in any one year,
1200 of those on the company account and the rest handled by private
traders. The company set shipping costs at 25 guilders per barrel so the beer
had to be of high value to sustain that hefty charge7'. For Flushing exports to
the Indies were an important market since local consumption, and with it the
industry, was declining there. Reaching probably a high point in 1634 of 10
breweries by 1754 the number was down to 5 where it would stay through
1769 only to face further decline after that date. At least Flushing had a new
market in the Indies, an advantage no other Zeeland town had.
The dramatic political changes of 1795 would change the political and le
gal environment of the brewing industry in Zeeland. Regulation might
change, decrease, become national rather than provincial but the economic
circumstances remained much the same. The decline of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries continued. Dutch brewing faced the start of the nine
teenth century in a miserable state. In the province of Zeeland there were
only three breweries left71, the wars of Napoleon and policies of his govern
ments doing little for the industry. The end of hostilities did bring some re
lief, perhaps already underway even before the fall of Napoleon. By 1816
70. GAVe. inv.nr. 1369 11 April. 1631]: GAV1, Archieven der gilden, inv.nr. 134 [c. 175II.
71. GAV1. Archieven der gilden: inv.nr. 134 [c. 1751
72. P. Mathias, The brewing industry in England 1700-IS30 (Cambridge 1959) 139-140.
73. GAV1. Archieven der gilden: inv.nr. 134 1751
74. J. de Ranter and J. ab Utrecht Dresselhuis, De provincie Zeeland (Middelburg 1824) 123.
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