Belgian beer exports under pressure

Belgium – Last year, exports of Belgian beer to the US, its third most important market, declined 12 percent. Exports to the UK were down 33 percent. Will Belgian brewers need to worry that competition from local craft brewers will eat into a profitable part of their business?

A straightforward answer is impossible. AB-InBev is the country’s major brewer – and exporter – and any shifts in its sales (and supply chain) will impact national statistics massively. But Charles Leclef, the owner of Mechelen’s Het Anker brewery, already hinted at the recent Brewers Forum in Antwerp that the export bonanza could be over for Belgium’s heritage brewers.

For more than a decade, Belgian beer exports have exceeded domestic consumption. In 2018, Belgian brewers exported more than twice the volume they sold domestically: 16 million hl versus 7 million hl. Put differently, Belgian brewers exported 70 percent of their production. With domestic beer consumption declining 20 percent between 2008 and 2018 to 64 litres per capita, exports were not just nice pin money, they often represented a vital income stream which secured a brewery’s survival. There are now over 300 breweries in Belgium, up from 135 in 2010.

In 2018, beer exports overall rose 2.2 percent, with the bulk (nearly 70 percent) going to EU countries, above all France and the Netherlands. But it gives reason for concern that exports to the US, the UK and China (-20 percent) decreased in the two digit figures. As craft brewers the world over have taken to launching their own Belgian-style beers, the demand for the real thing seems to fade.

At least this is one way to read the official statistics.