UK beer sales topped 8 billion pints in 2019 – but beer duty hike would stifle growth, BBPA warns

Sales of beer rose 1.1% to more than 8 billion pints last year,  the latest data from the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) has said, as it warned that any increases to beer duty in next week’s Budget would stifle growth.

(Photo: iStock)

The growth amounts to around 87 million additional pints of beer being sold in 2019, versus 2018, which came on the back of a bumper year, when beer sales rose to their highest  point in 45 years, boosted by the summer heatwave, the royal wedding and the Fifa World Cup.

The BBPA said the freeze on beer duty in October 2018 was a “key factor” in 2019’s performance, and the decision had boosted the government’s coffers by around £57million. It said any planned increase in the budget next week would ‘stifle’ this growth and called on the Chancellor to cut the duty, rather than just to freeze it.

“The new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has a fantastic opportunity to continue to help the beer and pub sector by going one step further than his predecessor and implementing a modest 2% cut in Beer Duty,” it said. 

The BPPA’s chief executive Emma McClarkin said pubs and brewers have “an overwhelmingly positive impact not just on the UK economy – supporting 900,000 jobs – but also socially and culturally across the UK” and it was important that the Chancellor actively supported them.

Around 255,000 people have signed the Long Live the Local petition calling on him to cut the duty on beer supported by a group of 85 Conservative MPs who signed a letter to him in support of the petition.

MP Mark Jenkinson said the beer and pub industry had been the pillar of many communities up and down the UK for hundreds of years. “Beer duty acts as a tax on our pubs and we have written to the Chancellor asking him to cut beer duty. We have welcomed the freeze in recent years; however, a number of MPs now believe more should be done,” he said.