site.btaBulgaria Produces 1.3% of EU's Beer in 2021, Output down 2.8%

Bulgaria's production of alcoholic beer in 2021 reached 439.2 million litres, which corresponds to 1.3% of the total production of EU countries, according to the latest data of the European statistics agency, Eurostat, published Tuesday on its website. Bulgarian brewers produced 12.8 million litres or 2.8% less alcoholic beer last year compared to 2020, when volumes reached almost 452 million litres.

Exports of Bulgarian beer, both to EU and non-EU countries, fell to 10.3 million litres in 2021 compared to 19.7 million litres reported in 2020.

Imports of beer with alcohol content above 0.5% into Bulgaria rose to 79.3 million litres last year, up from almost 78 million litres in 2020.

In 2021, the European Union produced 33.1 billion litres of alcoholic beer, and 1.7 billion litres of low-alcohol (alcohol content below 0.5%) or fully non-alcoholic beer. This amounts to almost 78 litres of beer for every EU citizen.

Compared to 2020, last year saw an increase in beer production. Non-alcoholic beer production increased the most, by almost 20%, while alcoholic beer production increased by almost 3%.

Germany remains the EU's leading beer producer with 7.5 billion litres last year, accounting for 23% of total production of the Union. It is followed by Poland and Spain, with around 3.7 billion litres each, or 11% of the total EU production. The Netherlands remains in fourth position with 2.5 billion litres, or 7% of the total production.

The Netherlands is the leading exporter of beer (1.9 billion litres of alcoholic beer), accounting for 21% of the total European beer exports. The other largest exporters are Belgium with 1.7 billion litres, Germany with 1.6 billion litres and France and the Czech Republic with 0.5 billion litres each.