Coopers Brewery boss worried as beer’s popularity dries up

Tim Cooper, the managing director of Australia’s largest independent brewery Coopers Brewery, remembers when beer made up seven out of 10 purchased drinks, while wine was roughly one in 10.

That was in the 1970s. These days, he reckons wine has overtaken beer in a major shift in consumer tastes spanning several decades that Cooper admits he’s concerned about.

“Now, less than 40 per cent is beer and 40 per cent is wine. Wine has taken a lot of the volume away from beer over the last 40 years or so,” Cooper said. “It’s definitely a worry to us.”

This trend is playing out in Coopers’ latest beer sales figures, which slid 3.5 per cent in the 2022 financial year to 79.4 million litres. The wind-up of JobKeeper and the Omicron strain that hit particularly hard in December and January meant people avoided crowded spaces and worked from home, all of which had a damaging impact on pubs and licensed venues.

As a result, Coopers’ keg beer volumes declined, while canned beer grew even more popular, now representing 33.5 per cent of Coopers’ packaged beer sales, up from 6 per cent five years ago.

Heading into the busy Christmas period, the first one without COVID restrictions in three years, Cooper predicts keg volumes will perform 25 per cent to 30 per cent better than last year – but that’s still lower than pre-COVID levels.

These days, Australians are simply drinking less alcohol – and when we do, our preferences are increasingly moving towards new beverage categories such as seltzers or no/low-alcohol options.

“Over the past 25 years, the average amount of pure alcohol consumed through drinking beer has dropped by over 30 per cent,” said John Preston, CEO of the Brewers Association that represents major players CUB, Lion and Coopers Brewery. Australian alcohol consumption has slid by more than 25 per cent since its 1975 peak of 13.1 litres to 9.5 litres in 2018.

And while wine has taken a big chunk out of beer’s market share, the preference within the beer category has changed too: Australians generally prefer mid-strength beers (3.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent alcohol) to full-strength beers (4.5 per cent or more).