Brewers in the European Union saw production levels for alcoholic beer drop 5% last year on 2022, according to data from the bloc's statistical office.

New findings published by Eurostat show 2023 production volumes of alcoholic beer in the region declined to 32.5 billion litres, a 1.7 billion litre dip on the year prior.

Low and no-alcohol beers, so those containing 0.5% abv or less, in contrast booked a 13.5% production increase compared to the year prior, at 1.8 billion litres.

Germany remained the top producer in the bloc, hitting 4 billion litres in 2023, making up 12.4% of total EU production. Following closely was Poland, achieving 3.5 billion litres, taking 10.8% of production share for the region.

Next, was the Netherlands with 2.4 billion litres and Belgium with 2 billion litres, each representing 7.5% and 6.3% of total EU production respectively.

Similar to 2022, in 2023 the Netherlands remained the largest exporter of alcoholic beer within the bloc, exporting a total of 1.8 billion litres, representing a dip of 0.1 billion litres on the year prior. The country's exports made up 21.5% of the EU's total EU countries' beer exports.

The country was followed by Germany and Belgium who each achieved 1.4 billion litres of exports.

France was also the top importer again in 2023, taking in 0.9 billion litres of alcoholic beer. The country represented 17.1% of total imports in the EU region. Italy and Spain followed not too far behind, with 0.7 and 0.6 billion litres respectively.

The UK was the biggest exporter of alcoholic beer to the EU as well as the largest importer of the beverage from the bloc. The nation imported 0.8 billion litres of alcoholic beer in 2023, equating to 22.8% of total EU exports to outside of the bloc. Its own exports to the EU sat at 0.3 billion litres, making up 57.6% of non-EU alcoholic beer imports.

Mexican alcoholic beer was the second most popular import into the EU reaching 0.1 billion litres in 2023.

The US saw the second largest volumes of EU beer imports last year, taking in 0.3 billion litres. It was followed by China at 0.3 billion litres and Cuba at 0.2 billion litres.