Leading beer brands by sales revenue in the UK 2023

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.