European Union countries increased beer production by 7% in 2022, almost to 34.3 billion liters, the EU statistics office said.
The bottling volume thus approached the pre-pandemic 2019 figure of 34.7 billion liters.
The production of beer with an alcohol content of less than 0.5% (non-alcoholic beer) remained unchanged at 1.6 billion liters.
Total beer output per capita amounted to about 80 liters last year, the report said.
Germany remains the main producer. It accounted for more than 22% of the total volume, or 7.6 billion liters of beer containing alcohol. It is followed by Spain (3.9 billion liters, or more than 11%), Poland (3.7 billion liters, or 11%), and the Netherlands (2.6 billion liters, or almost 8%).
At the same time, the Netherlands continues to be the main exporter of beer, having shipped 2.6 billion liters outside the country, including EU states, in 2022 (up 0.7 billion liters from the previous year). This represents 27% of total EU export sales.
The second place was taken by Belgium (1.6 billion liters, 17%), the third – by Germany (1.5 billion liters, 16%). The Czech Republic (0.6 billion liters, 6%) and Ireland (0.4 billion liters, 5%) were also in the top five.
The main destinations for beer exports outside the EU were the UK (860 million liters, 21%) and the USA (716 million liters, 18%), as well as China (349 million liters, 9%), Russia (271 million liters, 7%), and Canada (155 million liters, 4%).
France remained the largest importer of beer in the European Union, purchasing 0.9 billion liters of beer from union members and other states, accounting for 17% of the total volume. Next came Italy (over 0.7 billion liters, or 14%), Germany (just under 0.7 billion liters, 12%), the Netherlands (0.6 billion liters, 11%) and Spain (0.5 billion liters, 10%).
Britain imported the most significant volumes of beer into the EU (excluding union members) – 290 million liters, or 57% of all shipments. It also imported 99 million liters of Mexican beer (19%), 40 million liters of Serbian beer (8%), 15 million liters of Ukrainian beer (3%) and 11 million liters of Chinese beer (2%).
