Brewers in the European Union (EU) produced more than 34 billion litres of beer in 2022, up 7% on the year before and close to the levels of pre-pandemic 2019.
According to official EU figures, 34.3bn litres of beer containing alcohol were made in 2022, compared to the 34.7bn litres produced in 2019, plus 1.6bn litres of beer with less than 0.5% of alcohol, unchanged on 2021.
Germany remains by far the trading bloc’s largest brewing nation, making 7.6bn litres of beer containing alcohol in 2022, or more than 22% of the EU total – well ahead of second-placed Spain at 3.9bn litres, and Poland in third at 3.7bn litres.
The Netherlands brewed 2.6bn litres of beer last year, with France and Italy joint-fifth with 2bn litres.
Among EU beer exporting nations, the Netherlands held onto top spot, with Dutch brewers shipping 2.6bn litres of beer containing alcohol out of the country in 2022 – up 0.7bn litres versus 2021 and representing more than one-quarter (27%) of total EU beer exports.
Belgium was a relatively distant second at 1.6bn litres of beer exports, ahead of Germany (1.5bn litres), Czechia (0.6bn litres) and Ireland (0.4bn litres).
There was also no change in terms of the largest importers of beer into the EU last year: France led the way with 0.9bn litres, followed by Italy at just over 0.7bn litres, and Germany at just under 0.7bn litres. They were followed by the Netherlands (0.6bn litres) and Spain (0.5bn litres).
When it comes to exports to non-EU nations, the UK (860m litres) and the US (716m litres) were the chief destinations with a combined share of 39%, well ahead of China (349m litres), Russia (271m litres) and Canada (155m litres).
Beer imports into the EU – relatively insignificant compared to intra-EU shipments – were dominated by the UK with 290m litres, or 57% of extra-EU imports, in 2022.
Other leading sources of imports included Mexico (99m litres), Serbia (40m litres), Ukraine (15m litres) and China (11m litres).
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