Imported beer volume 1.9% in June to 3,695,331 barrels from a year earlier. Imported beer from Belgium (-85.2%) was the largest contributor to the decline overall.
“We should expect to see these declines for the next year,” says Danelle Kosmal, vp-research, Beer Institute, “as this is due to the shift in production of Stella Artois to the U.S. by Anheuser-Busch. If we were to remove Belgium imports from the scope, total Imported beer would essentially be flat for June 2022 (about 0.2%). Other contributors to declines included imports from Poland (-84.6%) and Canada (-20.9%). The declines from Poland are due to the halt in production of Arizona seltzer in Warsaw by Heineken USA.”
Kosmal says it is important to note that aside from shifts in production (Belgium and Poland), declines across imports is mostly due to difficult 2021 comparisons, when total imports were up 33.8% compared to June 2020, and up 14% compared to June 2019. June 2021 was a rockstar month for imports, so current trends aren’t bad considering the benchmark from 2021.
Mexican import growth slowed in May of 2022. The slowdown continues once again for June 2022, up only 1.9% compared to June 2021, she notes. Mexican imported beer grew by more than 52,200 barrels compared to June 2021. Import growth from the Netherlands (+9.1%) was close behind, with an increase of more than 38,000 barrels compared to last year.
Year-to-date, imports continue to outpace growth of the total beer category, with imported beer up 4.5% for the first six months of the year compared to the same months last year.