EU: Output of beer containing alcohol decreases, zero-alcohol beer volume remains stable in 2020

Almost 32 billion litres of beer containing alcohol were produced in the EU, according to Eurostat’s latest production statistics released last month.

In addition, in 2020, the EU Member States produced 1.4 billion litres of beer which contained less than 0.5% alcohol or had no alcohol content at all.

Compared with 2019, EU’s production of beer containing alcohol decreased by 8%, while the production of non-alcoholic beer remained stable.

In 2020, the EU’s total beer production was equivalent to around 74 litres per inhabitant.

Among the EU Member States, Germany was the top producer in 2020 with 7.5 billion litres (24% of the total EU production). In other words, about one in every four beers containing alcohol produced in the EU originated from Germany.

Germany was followed by Poland with 3.8 bln litres produced (12% of total EU production), Spain (3.3 bn litres produced, or 10%), the Netherlands (2.5 bln litres, or 8%), France (2.1 bn litres, or 7%), the Czech Republic (1.8 bln litres, or 6%) and Romania (1.7 bln litres, or 5%).

Comparing with 2019, Slovakia recorded the largest increase in the production of beer containing alcohol (+25%), followed by far by Greece, Lithuania and France (all +3%).

In contrast, the beer production in Italy almost halved in 2020 (-46% compared with 2019), while large decreases were also observed in Croatia (-29%), Spain (-14%), Hungary (-13%) and Austria (-11%).

The Netherlands exported 1.9 bln litres of beer containing alcohol in 2020, accounting for 21% of total (intra- and extra-EU) EU beer exports. This made it the largest beer exporter among EU Member States, ahead of Belgium (1.7 bln litres; 19%) and Germany (1.5 bln litres; 17%), followed by France and the Czech Republic (both 0.5 bln litres; 6%) as well as Ireland and Poland (both 0.4 bln litres; 5%).

The main destinations for beer exports to non-EU countries were the United States (895 million litres; 22% of total extra-EU beer exports) and the United Kingdom (881 million litres; 21%).

With 0.8 bln litres, France was the largest importer of beer containing alcohol in 2020 and represented 16% of EU total (intra- and extra-EU) imports. Germany imported 0.7 bln litres (13%), closely followed by Italy (0.6 bln litres; 12%), the Netherlands (0.6 bln litres; 11%) and Spain (0.5 bln litres; 10%).

Imports of beers containing alcohol from countries outside the EU are marginal compared to imports within the EU. When importing from non-EU countries, Member States favoured British beer (268 million litres; 51% of all extra-EU imports of beer in 2020, taking into account that in 2020 the United Kingdom was still in the internal market) and Mexican beer (95 million litres; 18% respectively).

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