Camden Town Hells Lager tops chart consecutively

Camden Town Hells Lager topped charts for the second year running as the UK on-trade’s best-selling craft beer in value and volume terms.

There was no competition for top spot, with Camden selling more than 43,000HL than second-placing Beavertown Neck Oil. Camden was also strides ahead when it comes to values, with £72.8m in sales versus Beavertown’s £34.2m.

However, Beavertown was the only company to see a rise in volume and value with its IPA and APA bookending the list in second and last place, with the six other beers dropping in value and volume sales.

Beavertown’s IPA was the chart highest climber, rising three places from last year, seeing by far the segment’s largest increases in volume and value at 53.2% and 56.8% respectively.

Knocked down a place

BrewDog has been knocked one place to third, having lost its top ranking for the first time since the list began last year, with volume and value dropping by just over a quarter.

BrewDog president David McDowall told MCA’s the Conversation in April that whilst consumers had not stopped drinking beer in the pandemic, the channel and format mix had changed rapidly at various points over the past year.

He said: “Suppliers have found it difficult […] to deal with the uncertainty on schedule, and also that level of uncertainty on what consumer confidence is going to be.”

Perhaps BrewDog’s fall from grace can be put down to these uncertain and difficult times.

Camden Pale Ale, Marston’s Pale Ale, Blue Moon and Brooklyn Lager also experienced a drop in value and volume of over a quarter.

While retaining its spot in seventh place, Brooklyn saw the largest fall of 40.9% in volume and 41.8% in sales.

Beavertown again secured success, with newcomer Gamma Ray APA knocking Goose Island Midway from eighth place with a 6.0% increase in volume sales and 8.6% rise in value.

• All data provided by CGA for the 12 months to 9 October 2021​​