On a hot summer’s day, you’ll see more people enjoying a pint of beer or cider than at any other time of year, and there’s been more than normal of those days this year. Then we had the England football team doing much better in this year’s World Cup than expected, and the two factors together have created a huge bonus for the beer and cider industries in the UK.

It seems these are the icing on the cake though, as Kantar Worldpanel reports that beer and cider sales had been enjoying an increase for some time, before both of these situations. In the year to 25 February 2018, the sales of beers and cider had risen by £191 million over the previous year, which equates to an increase of 6.3%.

The sales of ales are up by 7.7%, stout by 11.6% and lager by 5.1%. The biggest mover was craft beers though, which hit record sales of £135 million in the year to June. In comparison, the previous year reached £92 million, an increase of a massive 47%.

These increases are on sales as per money taken for them. There has been such a large increase in prices, as much as 57% on some drinks, that that affects the true picture. However, in the case of craft beers looking at the increase in volume instead that showed a 52% rise.

Rises like this have obvious benefits for the brewers, but there are advantages for other businesses too. For instance, the suppliers of brew software have seen a rise in demand for their products, as the busier the breweries get, the more they need software that will help to automate some of the tasks associated with brewing.

International flavour

International brewers have noticed various UK craft beer brands in recent years and there have been several company sales made. Meantime Brewery is a typical example being first of all sold to SAB Miller in 2015, and then became part of Asahi by AB InBev when they purchased SAB. London Fields Brewery was bought by Carlsberg in 2017, Camden Town Brewery by AB InBev in 2015 and in June of this year Heineken bought a stake in Beavertown.

Rises that might be more surprising are the ones in low or no alcohol beers. Kantar estimates that nearly one and a half million households bought low or no alcohol beers in the past year. This equates to an enormous increase if 57% over the previous year. It is said this is partly because all the major high street chains and supermarkets stock these, making them far easier to access than they used to be.

Brewers are enjoying increased trade on most of their products and this is helping the industry to get back on its feet. Some find these results very surprising because of the numbers of pubs that have closed and not been replaced. Beers and ciders are on sale in a lot more places now though, from your local corner shop to the largest of supermarkets, and this fact is one of the reasons the increase has been so noticeable.

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