Brands boosted by hot summer: top 10 lager & cider brands
 Top 10 lager and cider brands  
       
    Value (m) % change
  Stella Artois 569.5 8.8
  Budweiser 462.2 10.5
  Foster's 363.0 2.5
  Carling 316.1 -3.1
  Strongbow 311.2 16.7
  Carlsberg 188.5 2.5
  Kopparberg 164.1 9.3
  Corona 160.7 15.4
  Peroni 147.4 9.6
  San Miguel 140.6 17.6
       
  Source: Nielsen 52 w/e 20 April 2019    

“Remixing” their pack portfolios helped drive growth for the biggest brands in the past year, says Nielsen commercial business partner Gemma Cooper.

“We have seen some of Stella’s standout success from its 568ml can in the impulse channel. Heineken has worked well at activating its 15-pack across the market, and world beers have taken some of the learnings from the craft category and moved into 330ml cans.”


After years of suffering, Carlsberg’s reinvention finally looks to be paying off. It rolled out a major rebrand for its ‘green’ pilsner this year, which included a completely new recipe and a witty marketing push admitting its prior incarnation “probably wasn’t the best beer in the world”. Now Danish heartthrob Mads Mikkelsen is back for a major TV push.


Kopparberg added a cool £12.8m to its value this year, and the brand is convinced it’s got the chops to play in other booze categories. So far this year it’s launched an ‘aqua spritz’, two flavoured Kopparberg gins and a gin & tonic RTD.


Budweiser Brewing Co owns three of the five fastest-growing beer brands in Stella (up £52.5m), Budweiser (up £38.7m), and Corona (up £21.4m to £160m). That’s a combined £112.7m across the trio. Budweiser in particular benefited from its sponsorship of the World Cup. Who knows what that figure would have reached if England had made the final?

Lager sales surge: beer & cider value sales
Beer and cider value sales 
       
Lager   1841.2 7.0  
Cider   866.0 6.8  
Ale   581.9 1.8  
Stout   79.2 0.8  
       
Fastest growing retailers by value sales change      
       
Lidl 10.5%    
Aldi 1.9%    
Tesco 1.1%    
       
Fastest falling retailers by value sales change      
       
M&S -20.0%    
Waitrose -6.7%    
Co-op  -3.0%    
       
Source: Kantar, 52 w/e 24 February 2019      

Lidl may be growing fastest but there were plenty sales to go around. Every major retailer – apart from Waitrose – grew category value.
Lager was the year’s star performer, which is no surprise given the World Cup and the scorching summer. Within lager, posh world beers such as Peroni and Birra Moretti in particular struck the right chord with shoppers. World lager gained an extra 317,000 shoppers this year.
Ale’s fortunes were mixed. Craft ales continued to surge skywards, but mainstream and premium ales lost a combined 397,000 shoppers.
Traditional brands “will be hoping the continued interest in IPAs and lighter-in-colour variants within craft beer circles” will filter through from craft into the wider ale sector, says Kantar’s Andrew Curtis.
Shoppers are pulling back on larger packs – largely impacting apple cider and cheaper mainstream lagers. In Scotland, where minimum unit pricing legislation is now in place, this is even more pronounced. With similar legislation on the way for Wales, this trend looks set to continue, says Curtis.