This graph shows the sales of the top selling domestic beer brands of the United States in 2017. Bud Light was the first ranked domestic beer brand of the United States with about 2,031 million U.S. dollars worth of sales for the 52 weeks ended January 22, 2017.

Beer

Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage worldwide, and the third-most popular drink overall after water and tea. Research shows that people have been brewing beer as early as several thousand years before the Common Era. Recent studies claim that the production and consumption of beer was a major factor in the development of civilized society, arguing that the important and often spiritual role beer played in traditional ceremonies and feasts contributed to the development of ritual and tradition and consequently the development of society at large. The American beer palette has undergone changes in recent years. More and more consumers are turning to craft beer over the name brands. Generally speaking, a craft beer comes from a small, independently owned brewery that uses traditional brewing methods and focuses on developing beer with a distinct taste and quality rather than on mass producing. A growing number of these breweries have appeared on the scene in the last few years. Their popularity may be influenced by the increasingly popular local food movement, which emphasizes consuming food and drink produced in or near one’s own community.
Domestic beer brands, like Bud Light or Coors Light, are still leaders of the American beer market. Studies show that most people still prefer a domestic beer at happy hour. While facing unexpected competition for beer aficionados from the independent brewers of America, the big brands stand to capitalize on casual drinkers looking for a tasty, simple, and affordable beer.

Corona and Bud Light, in addition to having the highest brand awareness, also have the highest usage share of U.S. beer brands, sharing second place with Brooklyn Brewery as a local champion.

For this study, brand awareness was surveyed employing the concept of aided brand recognition, showing respondents both the brand's logo and the written brand name.

The most popular beer brand in Germany is Krombacher from Krombach. Other leading names include Beck's and Warsteiner. All three brands produce a variety of beers and beer-based drinks, as well as non-alcoholic beer.

Say Germany, think beer

Beer consumption in Germany has actually been falling during the last decade, compared to constantly rising levels from 1950 to 1980. This may be due to various reasons: changing drinking trends, the introduction of new drinks on the beverage market, both alcoholic and not, as well as health considerations. However, despite sliding consumption and decreasing beer sales, the German beer industry is still thriving, with brewery numbers in the country continuing to rise. German Beer Day is observed on April 23.

Cheers!

While forecasts for the industry revenue of manufactured beer do not show big leaps in figures in the 2020s, they do not show dramatic falls either. In 2022, revenue is predicted to amount to almost 11.2 billion U.S. dollars.

Modelo Especial was the leading beer brand in the United States in 2024. In that year, the brand had sales totaling over 4.1 billion U.S. dollars. In the same year, Bud Light was the second leading brand with sales of over 3.4 billion dollars.

In January 2024, respondents in Mexico were asked whether they had heard in the past two weeks about different beer brands and whether it had been positive or negative. Victoria was the most popular beer, followed by Modelo Especial and Negra Modelo.

Modelo was the leading imported beer brand in the U.S. with about five billion U.S. dollars worth of sales for the 52 weeks ended May 19, 2024. Total category sales amounted to approximately 11.23 billion U.S. dollars. U.S. beer marketBased on per capita consumption, beer is the most preferred alcoholic beverage in the United States. Beer is obtained through a beer manufacturing process called brewing. The final beer varieties range from less than 3 percent alcohol by volume to about 14 percent alcohol by volume. Most beer types contain alcohol between 4 and 6 percent by volume.The beer market in the United States is characterized by large breweries, mid-sized breweries and microbreweries, all of which brew a vast variety of craft beer. Many kinds of beer go through a so-called three-tier system which is comprised of suppliers, wholesalers, and retailers. The alcoholic drinks must be sold by their supplier, which can be a national brewery or an importer, to the wholesaler or distributor, who in turn sells the beer further to a retailer.The leading best-selling imported beer brands of the United States predominantly include Mexican beer brands such as Corona, Modelo Especial and Dos Equis. Modelo Especial is owned by the Mexican beer manufacturer and distributor Grupo Modelo, which was founded in 1925. As of late, the company brews and distributes 14 brands and is present in more than 180 countries.

As of 2023, the leading beer brand by sales in the United Kingdom (UK) was Stella Artois. In the 12 months that ended in March 2023, Stella Artois generated approximately 233 million British pounds from the sale of beer. Budweiser was the brand with the second highest retail revenue in 2022 and sold 136 million British pounds worth of beer.

Beer consumption in the United Kingdom

In 2021, the annual average Consumer Price Index (CPI) of beer in UK reached its peak at 107.2. The price of beer has continuously increased since 2016. The annual volume of beer consumed in the UK amounts to approximately 46.1 million hectoliters. Although beer consumption in the UK has fluctuated, there has been a continuous rise in consumer spending on beer during the last decade. In 2020, the increase in consumer spending on beer was particularly high, exceeding the price increases by a noticeable margin. In the following year, the high spending levels remained.

Effects of the pandemic on the production of beer in the United Kingdom

The volume of annual beer sales in the UK was on a downward trend during the period from 2004 to 2016. Afterward, sales were slowly rising until 2020. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, beer sales experienced a drop of nearly four million barrels. That year, considerably less beer was produced in the UK. However, the annual production volume of beer in the UK has gone back to prior pandemic levels the following year, amounting to almost 38.4 million hectoliters in 2021. The number of enterprises for the manufacture of beer has more than doubled since 2008 and amounts to 1,359.

During a survey period in January 2020 in the United Kingdom (UK), it was reported that lager was the favorite beer type across all survey age groups. It was most popular among the respondents aged between 25 and 34 with 81 percent.

Good old pilsener was the most popular beer in the Netherlands in 2022. 67 Percent of beer drinkers in the Netherlands indicated that they drank pilsener, a European lager, at least once a month. Pilsener is the most widely available beer type in the Netherlands, with well-known breweries such as Heineken, Amstel, and Hertog Jan being served and sold in bars, restaurants, and supermarkets. While the Dutch preference for pilsener is an established fact, the popularity of non-alcoholic beers and craft beers is also undeniable. Approximately half of the respondents to this widespread survey indicated that they had enjoyed an alcohol-free beer and a craft beer (speciaalbier in Dutch) in the last month.

Pilseners dominates the market…

Although the present statistic suggests that non-lager beers are nearly as popular as pilseners in the Netherlands, official sales figures offer a more realistic image of the Dutch beer market. The sales volume of lagers was roughly six times as high as that of special beers (craft beers) in 2021. Furthermore, the Dutch bought only 743 thousand hectoliters of non-alcoholic beer in that year, compared to nearly 8.5 million hectoliters of lager.

...but other beers are closing the gap

In the last few years, the sales of non-alcoholic beers, low-alcohol beers, and craft beers have increased, as the Dutch beer consumers introduced more variety in their beer palate. Back in 2017, even Heineken, which is generally considered to be a conservative brewery in terms of the variety of their portfolio, launched a non-alcoholic beer know as Heineken 0.0. This beer was such a hit that the beverage was considered to be the most successful innovation in the Netherlands in 2017.

"Asahi Super Dry" was the most popular brand of beer in Japan, according to a survey conducted in May 2024. Over 38 percent of respondents named Asahi's flagship beer brand their favorite. Brands owned by the four main Japanese beer manufacturers topped the rankings, with Asahi and Kirin being the dominant companies.

In 2024, the most consumed beer brand in Portugal was Super Bock with 69 percent of people consuming it. Sagres came in second place with 42 percent of people selecting it, while Heineken was chosen by 16 percent of those surveyed.

Corona was the most valued beer brand worldwide in 2024, with a value of 19 billion U.S. dollars. The brand was followed by Budweiser in second and Heineken, ranked third. Brand value Brand value is a bit of nebulous concept and different definitions exist. But, at its core brand value is about how much more people will pay for one brand over another and their likelihood of choosing that brand over another. Brand image One component of a brand’s value is its image. More or less the personality of the brand, it is what comes to consumers’ minds when they think of it. Budweiser has long been famous for its Super Bowl commercials. Their 2017 commercial, #BornTheHardWay garnered nearly a half a million shares on social media. Prior to the Super Bowl, Budweiser’s commercial was the most anticipated by viewers.

This statistic shows the results of a survey conducted in the United States in 2017 on craft beer. Some 46 percent of the respondents stated that they consume Bud Light, which is a General Beer Brand.The Survey Data Table for the Statista survey Craft Beer in the in the U.S. 2017 contains the complete tables for the survey including various column headings.

During a survey in August 2022 in the United Kingdom (UK), it was found that 52 percent of respondents said that IPA was their favorite beer type. Pale ale, with 41.5 percent, was the second-most popular beer type in the United Kingdom.

Popular beer types by age and gender

Among male drinkers, lager was less popular than among female drinkers. It was the only beer type that was more popular with woman than with men. Bitter was vastly more popular among older drinkers than younger drinkers. Pale ales and India pale ales were most popular among those aged 25 to 44, while the youngest drinkers were most likely to not know their favorites yet.

The wider European beer market

The UK was the third largest producer of beer in Europe, only in Russia and Germany more beer was produced. Curiously, this does not directly translate to consumption. While German per-capita consumption is among the top three in Europe the UK was behind a dozen of its European neighbors and consumers drank almost half the amount of those in Czechia.

This data depict a ranking of the most popular beer types in Germany from 2018 to 2021. In 2021, 34.7 percent of the German-speaking population aged 14 and over drank Pilsener.

As of January 2021, Sinebrychoff, a Finnish brewery and soft drinks company, had the highest number of views of over 248 thousand in Finland. The Koff Beer channel, the beer being brewed by Sinebrychoff, ranked second, followed by Kurkokanava, the YouTube channel of Kurko Long Drink. In the survey period, the leading Finnish brands on YouTube across all industries included Elisa, Finnair and Valio.

This statistic represents the results of a survey about the most preferred types beers usually associated with craft beers in Taiwan as of May 2019. According to Rakuten Insight, approximately 46.7 of respondents in Taiwan said they preferred pale ales.

In 2023, the global beer production amounted to about 1.88 billion hectoliters, up from 1.3 billion hectoliters in 1998. Beer is a widely consumed beverage around the world, made out of water, malt, hops and yeast as basic ingredients. Global leading countries in beer production are China, the United States and Brazil. BeerBeer is the most popular alcoholic beverage worldwide, and the third-most popular drink overall after water and tea. Research shows that people have been brewing this famous beverage as early as several thousand years before the Common Era. Recent studies claim that the production and consumption of beer was a major factor in the development of civilized society, arguing that the important and often spiritual role beer played in traditional ceremonies and feasts contributed to the development of ritual and tradition and consequently the development of society at large. The American beer palette has undergone changes in recent years. More and more consumers are turning to craft beer over the well-established name brands. In general, a craft beer comes from a small, independently owned brewery that uses traditional brewing methods and focuses on manufacturing beer with a unique taste and quality rather than on mass production. More and more of these breweries have appeared in the beer landscape in the last few years. Domestic beer brands, like Budweiser and Miller Light, are still leading the American beer market. While facing unexpected competition for beer fans from the independent brewers of America, the top brands stand to capitalize on casual drinkers looking for a tasty and simple beer at a reasonable price.

This statistic shows the beer consumption share in the United States in 2020, by category. In that year, the consumption of light beer took the largest share with 39.8 percent of total beer consumption in the United States.

Beer industry

Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in the United States. The majority of U.S. consumers showed a preference for light beer during that year. In contrast to regular beer, this variety has reduced alcohol content and calories. Bud Light was the nation’s leading beer brand, followed by Coors Light and Miller Lite. The Bud Light brand generated over two billion U.S. dollars in sales in 2017. It is owned and manufactured by Anheuser-Busch InBev, the largest brewing company in the world in 2018. Craft beer had a consumption share of nearly 11 percent in 2020. This type of beer is made by small, independent and traditional brewers. According to the American Brewers Association, craft breweries should produce only up to six million barrels of beer annually. Moreover, only less than 25 percent of the brewery can be owned or controlled by a non-craft brewer. The cities of Portland and Seattle had the highest craft beer sales between 2014 and 2015. Samuel Adams was the leading craft beer brand during this period, generating over 263 million U.S. dollars in sales. This brand is owned by the Boston Beer Company, the country’s second-largest craft brewer in 2014, based on volume sales. The U.S. had more than 8,880 craft breweries in 2020.

This statistic represents the results of a survey about the most preferred types beers usually associated with craft beers in Hong Kong as of May 2019. According to Rakuten Insight, approximately half of respondents in Hong Kong said they preferred pale ales.