Beer, recovery postponed. But the share of non-alcoholic beers increases

In short, producers see, in the medium term, the resumption of a path towards market maturity that has not yet been reached. "In Italy, consumption is well below the European average," argues Pratolongo, "and the macro-trends that have enabled long-term growth have not disappeared, from the search for naturalness in products that embraces the entire food&beverage sector and that consumers have recognised in beer for a long time, to consumption that rewards products with roots in the territory. Companies have done a lot on this theme, revitalising historical labels with new recipes. Other growth drivers are linked to the informality of beer and ease of pairing. There is also a factor of accessibility, both economic and cultural, in the sense that the approach to beer implies less connoisseur and, so to speak, gourmet knowledge'.

Compared to wine, the advantage is also in the lower alcohol content, in a context of both cultural and regulatory attention to the reduction of alcohol intake. It is no coincidence thatso-called 'zero-zero' proposals (or with very little alcohol) are bucking the trend: even though they are worth only 2.1% of the Italian market, their share grew by 13% in 2024 and after substantial rises in previous years. "They have improved in taste and there are now many ready-made proposals, whereas for example in wine there is practically no alternative for now. It is true that this is a low share,' Pratolongo continues, 'and since we are not a country of big consumers, growth may not be very fast, but this is undoubtedly the case. For example, in Spain, where per capita consumption is twice as high as ours, 'zerozero' is above 10% market share'.

More generally, many types of beer have a low alcohol content, on average below 5 degrees, with lagers accounting for 84% of the market in Italy. "With regard to the alarm that has been created by the new penalties in the Highway Code, we recommend that operators of away-from-home beers propose non-alcoholic beers as the second beer of the evening for those who do not want to risk exceeding the legal limits". Although the share of consumption in the away-from-home sector has reached 38.5 per cent, "it is the away-from-home sector that is suffering the most, not because people choose to consume less beer than other sectors, but because as the number of outings decreases, so do the opportunities for consumption," Pratolongo points out.

Beer is increasingly becoming an everyday household beverage, but in an inflationary context consumption has not been helped by the increase in excise duties, after the provisional cuts decided by the budget laws of the past years. Now the 'discount' has beenmade permanent only for breweries producing up to 60,000 hectolitres (between 50 per cent and 20 per cent depending on the quantity produced).

Assobirra instead calls for the cut to be generalised, thus bringing Italy closer to the rest of Europe: 'Excise duties, which in 2024 exceeded 714 million and affect up to 40% of the final price in the most popular format sold in Italy, the 66 cl, represent a brake on business competitiveness, limit investments and favour imports from countries with more advantageous taxation,' say the association.

In 2024, however, both imports (-5% to 7.6 million hectolitres, of which almost 45% came from Germany) and exports (-7.8% to 3.3 million) decreased, 'resulting in a growth of beer produced and sold in Italy'.

The 'beer world' employs 100,000 operators in more than a thousand companies between industry, microbreweries and maltsters, for a shared value - generated by the socio-economic impact of the entire supply chain, from suppliers to distribution - of 10.6 billion.