ABSTRACT
The Dutch brewing industry was massive by contemporary standards in the sixteenth century (Yntema 1992; Unger 1995). From the mid-seventeenth century it went through a sustained decline. The nineteenth century saw the end of that long history of contraction. The Dutch industry as much or more than that of any other nation benefited from the brewery boom of the 1870s and 1880s. By the eve of the First World War Dutch brewing had again assumed a place as a major industry in the Netherlands and again assumed a place in international markets. The transformation and resurrection was based squarely on imported technology, imported personnel and imported business practices. Dutch brewers proved extremely good at accepting and exploiting the best of developments in England, Bavaria, Denmark and the rest of Europe. They may have been slow up to the middle of the century to see the potential for change but from the 1860s the industry enjoyed all the advantages of the expansion of brewing typical of the period.
