Beer Production in Europe Returns to Pre-Pandemic Levels

It appears that beer production has bounced back from the lows of the pandemic.

Here’s the deal

At a time when many UK craft breweries are closing due to both the economic impact of Covid-19 imposed lockdowns as well as the limitations imposed by Brexit European brewery production has returned to post-pandemic levels in 2022 according to Eurostat.

And because this is EU data it’s all in liters, just keep in mind that 4 liter = roughly 1 US gallon.

According to Eurostat, EU countries produced almost 34.3 billion liters of beer containing alcohol and 1.6 billion liters of beer which contained less than 0.5% alcohol or no alcohol at all which speaks to the growing popularity of non-alcoholic beer brands in Europe.

Overall beer production in the EU increased by 7%, returning to levels closer to the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

In 2022 Germany continued its reign as the top producer in the region with 7.6 billion liters of beer (more than 22% of the total EU production). One in every four beers containing alcohol produced in the EU originated in Germany last year.

As in previous years, the Netherlands continued to lead as the top exporter of beer in 2022 with 27% of the market, followed by Belgium (17%), Germany (16%), Czechia (6%) and Ireland (5%).

As for imports, there was also no change compared with 2021. France retained its title as the largest importer of beer wit 17% of EU total in 2022, followed by Italy (14%), Germany (12%) the Netherlands (11%) and Spain (10%).

The EU’s biggest export destination in 2022 was the UK (21%) followed by the US (18%), China (9%), Russia (7%) and Canada (4%).

British beer dominated the most popular imports to EU countries commanding a massive 57% of the market, followed by Mexican beer (19%), Serbia (8%), Ukraine (3%), and China (2%).

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