Branding and Publicity in the Belgian Brewing Industry Between 1900 and 1940

The brewing industry underwent a lot of changes in the second half of the nineteenth and the

beginning of the twentieth century. Beer was famous for its healing powers; unlike water,

beer wasn't contaminated by bacteria's due to the boiling process. Industrialization and

technological innovations would drastically change this artisanal profession, breweries were

transferred from father to son, into a real professional industry. Thanks to the scientific

research of Pasteur, Hansen and Von Linde, it was now possible to brew a more qualitatively

beer and it also facilitated the bottom fermentation brewing process. These bottom

fermentated beers soon became very popular, but not every brewer could brew these because

of the high capital requirements bottom fermentation demanded, so only a few breweries in

Belgium switched to bottom fermentation. In Belgium, top fermentation stayed the number

one brewing process and the market was flooded with these beers, there were over 3000

breweries in the beginning of the twentieth century. World War One was a turning point for

the Belgian brewing industry. Many breweries were destroyed or lost their materials, so they

couldn't restart their businesses. Only breweries with enough capital restarted and most of

them also switched to bottom fermentation which became even more popular. The market

share of bottom fermentated beers would keep growing to the prejudice of top fermentated

beers. The entire Interbellum could be summarized in the following sentence: concentration of

the Belgian brewing industry and the breakthrough of lager.

Advertising wasn't very popular before World War One; brewers didn't understand

this