For the first time in five years, world beer production rose slightly in 2019 compared to the previous year, by around nine million to 1.913 billion hectoliters. This is one of the first results from the BarthHaas report Hop 2019/2020, which is expected to be published in early October and which reflects the situation before the corona crisis. Largest beer producing countries were again China, the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Germany.
Europe shows an almost unchanged aggregated beer production. However, Spain achieved a plus of 1.2 million hectoliters, while in Germany there was minus two million hectoliters and Poland a minus of 1.1 million hectoliters.
America owed its growth in particular to Mexico (+ 4.4 million hl) and Brazil (+3.4 million hl). In contrast, the USA lost 3.6 million hectoliters in 2019.
China was still the largest beer producer in the world (around 376 million hl) but lost another - 4.7 million hl in 2019 after a heavy loss in output by almost 60 million hl the year before.
Overall Asia produced in 2019 6.8 million hl more than in the previous year with most of the growth coming from Cambodia (+ 5 million hl), Vietnam (+3 million hl) and Thailand (+2.4 million hl), according to BarthHaas.
The figures now published for 2019 are all hollow words because serious forecasts for 2020 are not possible any more since the start of the corona crisis.