In the beer sector, the 0.0 label is gaining ground. Its global figures are still modest compared to alcoholic beverages, but the annual growth of “free beers” is huge. And its forecasts are promising. Two pieces of information come to confirm this. Eurostat estimates that production in the EU alone, where some of the countries with the greatest weight in the market, such as Germany and Spain, will increase by 13.5% between 2022 and 2023. If you look further, both geographically and temporally, Statista predicts that sales at this level will grow at least until 2028, when they will exceed $50 billion.

Cultural changes, market changes.

Europe accelerates to 0.0. The Eurostat data is there. They also show steady growth in non-alcoholic beer. A few weeks ago, to celebrate International Beer Day, it published a report showing that production of 0.0 beer, or less than 0.5% alcohol, increased by 13.5% in a year between 2022 and 2023. In absolute terms, this translates into a total production of 1.8 billion litres of non-alcoholic beer.

This is much less than the 32.5 billion liters of alcoholic beer, but the development of the latter is not so positive. Moreover, while double-digit growth of 0.0 is recorded between 2022 and 2023, alcoholic beer production in the European Union fell by about 5%.

Who produces it? There are two clear protagonists in the European Union’s brewing industry. Both in the alcoholic beverages market and in the alcohol market with 0.0 or very low levels. At the top of the Eurostat tables is Germany with 7.2 billion litres of alcoholic malt beer. Spain follows with 4,000 million. Data from employers’ associations confirm that Germany is in first place, followed by Spain at a distance. If the focus is expanded beyond Europe, China, the USA, Brazil and Mexico stand out in terms of volume.

The EU map is completed by other relevant producers on the non-alcoholic map: the Netherlands and France. In Spain, black beer also left a positive result in another section, namely demand. It closed last year without an increase in beer sales, although the sector generally recorded a “squeeze” in consumption and Voz Populi predicted a decrease in activity between 2022 and 2023. The employers’ association estimates three million hectolitres sold, up 3.5%.

Good guesses. The future looks rosy, too. At least according to Statista, which acknowledges that beer represents a tiny fraction of global revenue from drinking, while also expecting it to experience “strong growth” over the next few years. Its data is based on research from Statist Market Insights, which predicts that global non-alcoholic beer sales will exceed $50 billion by 2028. If true, that would be a significant increase from 34.1 billion in 2023.

“A worldwide success story”. The quotes are taken from the ‘Socioeconomic Report of the Spanish Beer Sector 2023′ published by Cerveceros de España, which includes Mahou, Damm, Heinekken and Hijos de Rivera, among others. In the study, the employers’ association stresses that beer-free beer is “consolidating itself as a popular alternative” and presents its evolution as “a success story”.

“Although the increase in the consumption of this variety did not compensate for the overall decrease, this success may be related to the moderate and responsible consumption habits among Spaniards; while some young people are gradually reducing their beer consumption, some older people are also gradually reducing their beer consumption. “They drank less beer in 2023.”

The yearbook also recalls that Spain has “the highest percentage of beer consumption in the Western world” in terms of total consumption, at around 14% of per capita consumption. As an example, it states: “According to the latest global data, total consumption of non-alcoholic beer in hectolitres was the same in Spain as in all of Latin America.”

Changes in habits… The growth of 0.0 beer can be explained by various reasons. The producers’ non-alcoholic product catalogue has grown, their advertising has been given more importance, and campaigns warning about the harms of alcohol consumption or the risks it poses to drivers also support alcohol consumption. The industry itself has started to seek an image change.

A clear example is that the list of sponsors of the Olympic Games in Paris (Olympic Games), the biggest event in international sports, includes at least one beer company: Anheuser-Busch InBev, through its Corona Cero-free beer. The agreement with the IOC was announced at the beginning of the year and covers both the French event and the 2026 Winter Games and Los Angeles 2028.

…And also a new audienceBut there is another key, partly related to the above: generational change. during an interview collected by Week Steve Fox, the owner of a popular hospitality business in Maryland, offered a clue that focuses on the consumption of intoxicating beverages: He says at least some of the shift is explained by Generation Z, who are now in their twenties. “They are very conscious about what they eat, and I don’t think having a mandatory alcoholic drink before dinner is a reality today.”

A 2018 Cleveland Clinic study of college students found that 28% of students said they were abstaining from drinking alcohol, up eight percentage points from 2002. In March, Ethic cited another report that concluded that alcohol consumption among European adolescents has fallen by 10% since the 1980s.

Images | Giovanna Gomes (Unsplash) and Statista

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