World: Beer production up 0.1% in 2017

As a result of the adjustments to the output figures for some countries, world beer output in 2016 was in fact 7 million hl lower than stated in last year’s report. The most significant corrections were made for Asia (-12.3 mln hl) and North America (+5.4 mln hl). Global beer output is thus seen at 1.95 bln hl in 2016, the Barth-Haas Group said in its yearly report.

There was an insignificant increase in world beer production in 2017 of 1.2 mln hl, or 0.1%, compared with output volume in 2016, the analysts report. The variation in beer output was therefore less than one per cent for the fifth year in succession.

The most important beer-producing nations remain China, the USA, Brazil, Mexico and Germany. These five countries account for more than half of world beer output volume.

The decline of 4.8m hl in Europe is the result of a fall of -1.2 mln hl in the European Union (Germany: -1.9 mln hl) and -3.6 mln hl in the countries in the rest of Europe (Russia -3.8 mln hl).

America saw output grow by 7 mln hl. This growth came above all from countries in South America (Brazil +6.7 mln hl, Columbia, Argentina, Peru and Chile combined +3 mln hl, Venezuela -2.3 mln hl). In North America, the result was essentially influenced by a decline of -5.7 mln hl in the USA and an increase of + 5.0 mln hl in Mexico.

In Asia the increase in output in some countries (Vietnam +5.9 mln hl, Philippines +2.3 mln hl and Myanmar +1.2 mln hl) was insufficient to compensate for the decline in others (China -10.5 mln hl, Japan -3.5 mln hl, Thailand -1.7 mln hl) which led to a decline of 4.4 mln hl in total.

The main contributor to growth of 3.4 mln hl in Africa was Ethiopia (+1.6 mln hl).

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