Production soars by 13%

August is the month of a beer on the beach. But for years now, Europe has been seeing a trend that is quite different from what we are used to: education about the harms of alcohol. has led to the boom of 0.0 beersIn just one year, non-alcoholic beer production has increased by 13.5% during 2023, compared to 2022, 215 million liters more.

And while the production of zero-alcoholic beers is increasing, the production of alcoholic beer has decreased by 5%. In 2023, they were produced in the countries that make up the European Union 32.5 billion liters of beer with alcohol. The previous year, 34.205 billion were produced, 5% more. This is evident from the data of Eurostatconsulted and analyzed by Vozpopuli.

Globally, 34.3 billion litres of beer have been produced this year, 32.5 billion with and 1.8 billion without. Compared to the 35,805 produced in total in 2022 (34,205 with alcohol and 1,600 without), Beer consumption, whether of one type or another, has decreased by 5% in just one year.

Spain is following the opposite trend

While the vast majority of Europeans reduce their consumption of alcoholic beers every year, it is striking that Spain is following the opposite trendIn fact, not only has the production of zero-alcohol spirits not increased, but it has actually decreased. In 2022, 298 million litres of non-alcoholic spirits were produced in Spain. A year later, production stood at 253 million.

These data reflect the “failure” of awareness campaigns that have been carried out over the last few years by public bodies, among others, in which they encouraged people to reduce alcohol consumption.

This is not good news for the beer industry either. On the one hand, because the regulation of advertising of alcoholic beverages has forced brands to enter this niche, and, at least for now, the efforts are not being reflected in the data.

On the other hand, because, taking into account the reality of the international market, the large companies in the sector in Spain changed their strategy a few years ago and bet heavily on 0.0. For example, Mahou has managed to achieve Your 0.0 toast leads the way of the group and the rest of the brands have followed suit and Heineken has launched Águila 0.0 Unfiltered, converting its great success into an alcohol-free beer, in order to attack this niche.

Beer production in Europe

Returning to production at European level, in 2023 Germany remained the leading producer with 7.2 billion litres (22.3% of total EU production). But Spain is not far behind, occupying a proud second position, with 4 billion litres produced (12.4% of total EU production). Spain is followed by Poland with 3.5 billion (10.8%), the Netherlands with 2.4 billion (7.5%) and Belgium with 2 billion litres (6.3%).

As in previous years, trade data shows that The Netherlands continued to lead the list of major exporters of alcoholic beer in 2023In total, the Netherlands exported (within and outside the EU) 1.8 billion litres of alcoholic beer in 2023, representing 21.5% of total beer exports from EU countries.

As regards imports, France was once again the main importer of beer, with 900 million litres, representing 17.1% of total EU imports (intra- and extra-EU). The other major importers were Italy, with more than 700 million litres, and, curiously, Spain.