The Ukraine war is not only having an impact on the global economy, the brewing industry is also anticipating a decline in production. According to the hop specialist Barthhaas, beer consumption has not collapsed as much as forecast – and a lack of hops is not to blame either.
World beer production is expected to fall this year. The world’s largest hop specialist, Barthhaas from Nuremberg, is assuming a decline of between half and one percent, as Managing Director Peter Hintermeier explained. However, he emphasized that a precise outlook is currently very difficult. “Like the entire global economy, the brewing industry has been hit hard by the consequences of the Ukraine war,” said Hintermeier.
Around five percent of the world’s beer production is brewed in Russia and Ukraine. Last year, Russia ranked sixth among the world’s largest beer producers with 8.2 billion liters, just behind Germany in fifth place, which, according to Barthhaas, produced 8.5 billion liters. The four largest beer producers worldwide were China with 36 billion liters ahead of the USA with 20.4 billion, Brazil with 14.3 billion and Mexico with 13.5 billion liters.
In 2021, global beer production had increased by around 4 percent to 186 billion liters. “Fortunately, beer consumption worldwide has not collapsed as much as was forecast,” emphasized Hintermeier. There were particularly strong increases in production in China, Brazil, Mexico and Great Britain, among others.
In China, it was the first plus after seven consecutive declines. However, five billion liters were missing from the global pre-corona level in 2021. However, the expected decline in beer production is not due to a lack of hops. Last year, for the third time in a row, significantly more hops were harvested than needed.
At least the global acreage has recently declined slightly, and the current harvest in Europe could be weaker due to the persistent drought. Because farmers usually have long-term supply contracts, they are less affected than the currently rising costs, for example for energy and labour, as Hintermeier explains.
In addition, delivery bottlenecks for fertilizers and pesticides are a burden for farmers. It can be assumed that around 90 percent of the expected harvest has already been sold. In Germany, hardly any gas is used in hop production – but it is used in hop processing. The same applies to breweries and bottle producers. Barthhaas warns that should Russia actually stop supplying gas to Europe, this would put an additional burden on the industry.