World: Combined output of world’s top 40 largest brewers up by about 80 mln hl last year

The combined output of the world’s 40 largest brewers in 2021 rose by about 80 million hectolitres to nearly 1.7 billion hectolitres, representing an increase of just below five percent and bringing their total market share to 91.4 percent. This is one of the facts contained in the Top 40 Breweries rankings published in the BarthHaas Report 2021/2022.

The high proportion of brewing groups leading the rankings is particularly noteworthy: the top four – AB InBev, Heineken, Carlsberg and China Resources Snow Breweries – alone accounted for a good 61 percent of the beer output of the top 40 breweries. AB InBev went clear at the top of the table with an output of nearly 582 million hectolitres (34 percent).

2021 produced winners and losers among the different brewing nations. Many Western European
countries were still laboring under the COVID-related restrictions. Nearly all the breweries in the beer stronghold of Germany, for example, had to swallow losses of output. For countries in most of the other regions around the world, however, the situation eased somewhat, with beer sales rising in many places.

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