E-Malt.com News article: Spain: Survey finds most Spanish consumers drank beer in bars or restaurants last month

Most Spanish beer consumers said they drank beer in bars, restaurants or cafes during the previous month, according to a new survey released on September 9 by the University of Malaga’s Center for Applied Social Research.

The study found that 92.7% of surveyed beer consumers in Spain had consumed beer in hospitality venues over the prior month, compared with 79.3% who said they had consumed it at home. That put out-of-home consumption 13.4 percentage points above at-home consumption in the survey’s declared incidence measure.

The findings point to the weight of Spain’s hospitality channel as a place where consumers encounter the product. They also suggest that beer consumption is closely tied to social occasions rather than only to routine household use.

Among respondents who drink beer, 82% said they had met friends to have beer during the previous month. Another 69.3% said they had done so with a partner, and 49.6% said they had consumed beer with family members. The survey also found that 74.1% had arranged a meeting specifically to drink beer, without needing another reason for the gathering.

The research was carried out from May 5 to June 8, 2026, and asked respondents to recall their behavior in the previous month. It covered 4,002 adults in Spain, including 3,008 beer consumers and 994 nonconsumers, through an online panel with quotas for sex, age and Nielsen areas. The reported margin of error for the full sample was ±1.55% at a 95% confidence level.

The study was prepared by the Center for Applied Social Research at the University of Malaga in collaboration with Cerveceros de España, the industry group for Spanish brewers. That detail is relevant to how the findings should be read. The survey is a sociological study of declared habits and occasions, not a market measurement of sales, volumes, spending or prices.

Researchers also cautioned that the percentages for consumption inside and outside the home overlap. A respondent could report both, so the figures should not be interpreted as shares of total beer volume or consumer spending. The survey measures whether respondents said they consumed beer in those settings during the reference period, not how much they drank in each one.

Because this is the first edition of the study, there is no directly comparable earlier series to show whether these patterns are rising, falling or stable over time. Even so, the results offer a snapshot of how beer consumption in Spain remains linked to the country’s bar and restaurant culture, with social meetings playing a central role in when and where people say they drink it.


11 September, 2026