It is hard to believe that Spain, a country famous for its wine tradition, has become the second largest producer of beer in the European Union.

According to a recent report by Eurostat (Statistical Office of the European Union), which collects data for 2021, our country ranks second with Poland, producing 3.7 billion liters of beer per year.

In 2021, in fact, 33,100 million liters of alcoholic beer were produced on our continent, and 1,700 million beers had an alcohol content of less than 0.5%. While production of the former increased by 3%, non-alcoholics increased by 20%, indicating that the latter is on the rise.

The largest beer export country is the Netherlands (1.9 billion liters of beer), followed by Belgium (1.7 billion liters) and Germany (1.6 billion liters), while the United Kingdom and the United States remain the main destinations. European beer is imported (22% and 19%, respectively).

France, on the other hand, tops the ranking of European countries importing beer (800 million litres, which represents 16% of total imports); It is followed by Italy and Germany, which import about 700 million liters (13%).

Obviously, when it comes to imports, the favorites are British beers (47% of all non-EU beer imports in 2021) and Mexican beers (23%).

Beer consumption down in Spain

Although Spain is one of the European Union countries with the highest beer production, per capita consumption of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beer in our country has decreased, according to data from the 2021 Food Consumption Report in Spain.

Beer with alcohol is consumed the most by Spaniards (18.37 liters per capita per year), although its consumption has decreased by 5.6% from the previous year, which is equivalent to stopping drinking 1.02 liters per capita. For its part, per capita consumption of non-alcoholic beer also decreased by 11.2%

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