JSC Cēsu alus together with the marketing and public opinion research centre SKDS for the third year has implemented the annual monitoring of the Latvian beer market, also establishing the beer popularity index in all the Baltic States. This year for the first time beer is the most popular beverage in Latvia, but the total showings of the Baltic Index are decreasing.

Since 2009, when Cēsu alus carried out such a voluminous beer market research in Latvia for the first time, a stable tendency of growing beer popularity has been forming – if three years ago the most popular beverage in Latvia was wine, leaving beer in the second position, then in 2011 this relation has changed when people in Latvia have named beer as the most popular beverage.

Beer in Latvia traditionally is the leader and remains in this position as the most popular beverage specifically among men (47%), but since 2009 beer has gained popularity also among the female audience (+5%). In the female audience the popularity of beer cocktails is also growing. It is interesting that beer consumption and popularity is also growing in all regions of Latvia except Riga, where beer consumption has slightly decreased and has returned to the level of 2009.

“For the third year of researching the beer market and asking the respondents mainly the same questions, we can follow the tendencies that have formed throughout the years. The stable growth of beer popularity in Latvia is satisfying – the growth is not fast, but it is consistently reaching upwards. Another positive fact is thatbeer is becoming a beverage of holidays and traditions and its consumption from watching sports on TV screens is more and more often transferred to bars and restaurants. These tendencies prove the investment of all Latvian beer brewers in the formation and development of beer culture,” Chairman of JSC Cēsu alus Eva Sietiņsone-Zatlere acknowledges.

In Latvia the traditionally popular beer is the light beer (56%), but by observing expansion of new beer niches in the local market, this year the research also included a question about the popularity of unfiltered beer – the results prove that 15% of the respondents favoured non-filtered beer. The expansion and popularity of non-filtered beer is a new tendency specifically in Latvia, because in the rest of the Baltic States the typical beer is quite a neutral type of light beer with no special aftertaste.

Over the years the range of the loyal consumers of a single beer sort is growing – every sixth respondent claims that he or she chooses only one favoured beer brand. In comparison to the previous two years, the consumers pay more and more attention to the price of beer (+3%) and to the producer (+2%), but the main criteria for buying beer remains the flavour – 49%.When surveying the residents about what is the typical Latvian beer in public opinion, besides the bitter hop flavour mentioned in the previous years, this year new tendencies appear in the evaluations, mentioning the thickness of beer and the caramel tint, which can be explained by the growing number of non-filtered beer favourers.

In 2009, JSC Cēsu alus developed and established the Baltic Beer Index for the first time in Latvia. The index includes facts on the number of people who consider beer their most favoured beverage, the consumption frequency of beer and the situations in which beer is preferred over other alcoholic beverages. In general, the Index shows the popularity of beer over other beverages.

Baltic Beer Index of 2011: (theoretically the maximum value of the index is 100 points)
Lithuania 55.5 (+0.9) – typical leader among the Baltic States
Estonia 51.6 (-3.5) – second place, even with the largest fall this year
Latvia 49.9 (-0.6) – since 2009, the lowest showing

In 2009 and 2010 the showings of the Baltic Beer Index grew, but in 2011 for the first time the index parameters have decreased. This year only the Lithuanian showing has grown, while in Latvia there was a slight decrease and in Estonia a significant index decrease can be observed. The high showing of the Lithuanian index is explained by the fact that in this country specifically beer is consumed in the largest amount and most often – 38% of the respondents enjoy beer two to three times a week, while in Latvia this showing is almost half as much – only 22%.