The average Slovak drank 59.1 litres of beer last year, representing a drop by less than 1 percent from 2022, and a drop by one third in the last 30 years, according to the Slovak Statistics Office. The highest beer consumption in the era of independent Slovakia was reported in 1994 when every Slovak drank 93.4 litres of beer on average. "Beer consumption was then falling, and it wasn't until just before the pandemic that the volume of sold beer grew again for three years. However, the annual consumption per capita was only around 70 litres. The two pandemic years brought a sharp decline in beer consumption, which persisted also last year, when per capita consumption was the lowest seen in the history of independent Slovakia," said the head of the office's department of statistics on living standards Robert Vlacuha.
According to statista.com data, the Czech Republic with 129 litres was leader in beer consumption per capita in Europe last year, followed by Austria with 101 litres and Poland with 92 litres. Slovakia ranked the 14th. Just for comparison, the average beer consumption in France was a mere 33 litres.
The Statistics Office further reported that Slovak breweries posted year-on-year increase in beer production last year. Total output of alcoholic beer grew by 2 percent compared to 2021, while output in non-alcoholic beer swelled as much as 64 percent. Slovak breweries produced and sold almost 184 million litres of alcoholic beer and almost 10 million litres of non-alcoholic beer worth more than €137 million (ex-VAT). International Beer Day is always celebrated on the first Friday in August. It was founded by entrepreneur and beer enthusiast Jesse Avshalomov from the USA in 2007.
Source: TASR
