Carling is best-selling lager in the on-trade

The top lagers were named as:

1. Carling
2. Foster’s
3. Carlsberg
4. Peroni Nastro Azzurro
5. Stella Artois
6. Coors Light
7. Tennent’s
8. San Miguel
9. Amstel
10. Kronenbourg 1664
11. Heineken Premium
12. Birra Moretti

More than 3m hectolitres (HL) of Carling were sold in the 12 months to 11 August 2018, however, this figure dropped slightly from last year. In 2017, volume sales were at 3,177,274 HL and this year they peaked at 3,064,216 HL – a drop of 3.6%.

Lager brands

In terms of value, the brand saw sales of £1,740.3m last year, again the figure had fallen this year to £1,706.5m – a decrease of 1.9%.

Research published in YouGov’s Beer and Cider report showed Carling was the favourite drink of Brits in its West Midlands base.

In second place was Foster’s which saw volume sales of 1,922,906 HL – a drop from 2,058,857 HL in the previous year. This was a drop of 6.6%.

Heineken’s lager arm unveiled a new campaign to showcase its Australian roots and embrace its ‘crafted’ heritage in May last year.

Sales growth

Third came Carlsberg, which recorded a volume of 1,192,798 HL sold a year ago but this year, it was down to 1,036,724 HL – a fall of 13.1%.

When it came to value, the Danish brand had £634.4m worth of sales last year but, this year, it was £558.5m – a 12% drop.

Birra Moretti was one brand that saw growth with 172,490 HL sold in 2017 but this soared by 46.9% to 253,358 HL this year.

In terms of value, the brand saw similar growth levels of growth from £142.5m worth sold last year, up 48.1% to £211.1m this year.

The list was compiled by CGA Strategy based on consumer preference, equity scores and sales metrics and includes brands from the spirits, wine, softs and LAD categories.

Consumer opinion forms the basis of the methodology, highlighting the brands that consumers want to see when they visit the on-trade.

As such a 66:33 weighted split was used to determine the list, balancing consumer preferences with actual on-trade sales performance to give the most accurate and comprehensive list of the 100 ultimate drinks brands in the GB on-trade.

By measuring brands against a number of equity features, we have also uncovered consumers’ perception of brands and the reasons why they make up the nation’s favourite drinks – are they cool, fun, value for money? etc.

• All data provided by CGA, which looks at the 12 months to 11 August 2018