Dutch beer sales fall 2.8% as brewers seek cancellation of 2027 excise increase
Sales of alcoholic beer in the Netherlands fell 2.8% year on year in the first half of 2026 and were 5.3% below 2024 levels. Brewers and hospitality businesses want the government to cancel an excise increase scheduled for January 1, 2027, while alcohol-free beer continues to gain ground.
Alcoholic beer market extends its decline
Dutch breweries sold 2.8% less alcoholic beer in the first six months of 2026 than in the same period of 2025, according to figures from industry association Nederlandse Brouwers. Sales were 5.3% below their 2024 level, confirming that the contraction is extending beyond a single reporting period.
The weakness affects a broad domestic value chain. Nederlandse Brouwers chairman Fred Teeven said more than 70,000 jobs depend on beer, including positions at breweries and in hospitality, retail, logistics, services, and barley and hop farming. The association represents fourteen Netherlands-based breweries that together account for more than 95% of national beer production.
Industry challenges planned excise increase
Nederlandse Brouwers and hospitality association Koninklijke Horeca Nederland, or KHN, are calling on the cabinet to abandon the beer excise increase due to take effect on January 1, 2027. They argue that the measure would add costs as demand is already weakening. Teeven also pointed to other government measures, including a distance-based charge for freight traffic, as an additional source of pressure on distribution costs.
According to Teeven, government revenue from beer excise did not rise after the 2024 increase and instead declined. KHN director Udo Delfgou said another increase would conflict with the cabinet’s stated emphasis on innovation, investment, entrepreneurship and economic growth. The associations have not provided a forecast for the additional decline in sales that could follow the 2027 measure.
Cross-border purchases widen competitive pressure
Independent brewers’ association CRAFT warned that higher duties could encourage more consumers to purchase beer in Belgium and Germany. CRAFT chairman Hans Noorman said Dutch beer excise is almost twice the Belgian level and between four and nine times the German level, depending on the beer category. He added that Germany has exempted beer from an alcohol excise increase planned there for next year, potentially widening the price disadvantage facing Dutch sellers in border regions.
The pressure is already visible in the producer base. Entree Magazine reported that Statistics Netherlands counted 740 breweries at the beginning of 2025, down from 780 a year earlier, the first annual decline since 2010. Alcohol-free beer is moving in the opposite direction: sales rose 7.7% year on year during the first half of 2026 and were 22% above 2024. That divergence gives brewers and retailers a growing category with which to offset part of the decline in traditional beer, but the available figures do not show whether its additional volume is large enough to compensate for lost alcoholic beer sales.
