Brewed Where?

Which beers sold as foreign are brewed in Britain, and what to buy instead

The back of the can, read for you

38 beers sold as foreign are brewed in Britain.

They are sold as Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Mexican or Japanese, and made in Burton, Tadcaster, Manchester, Magor, Northampton or Samlesbury, often to a lower strength. This site names them, says where each is really brewed and who owns it, and points you at the beers that are what they say they are.

See the 38 brewed here What to drink instead
150beers checked, every one sourced and dated 38sold as foreign, brewed in Britain 45worth buying: genuine imports and honest British beers

The clearest evidence is strength

Recipes are not published, so the most checkable difference between a beer here and the same brand at home is how strong it is. 25 of the beers on this site are brewed weaker for Britain than for their home market, and the reason is largely visible in one number: UK alcohol duty steps up sharply at 3.5%, so eleven of them sit at exactly 3.4%.

UK strength of every beer on the site, from 3.0% to 6.0%A dot chart of UK strength for 106 beers, from 3.0% to 6.0%. 12 of them fall below the 3.5% duty threshold, and 11 of those sit at exactly 3.4%: Amstel, Banks's Amber Bitter, Boddingtons Draught Bitter, Bud Light, Carlsberg Danish Pilsner, Coors Lager, Foster's, Greene King IPA, Grolsch Premium Pilsner, Rosa Blanca and Sol. The largest stack on the chart is at 5.0%, with 16 beers. A further 12 below 3.0% and 5 above 6.0% fall outside the axis and are not plotted. 123 of the beers on the site have a UK strength on record.3.0%3.5%4.0%4.5%5.0%5.5%6.0%3.5% duty thresholdCruzcampo Sevilla Orange, 3.3%Amstel, 3.4%Banks's Amber Bitter, 3.4%Boddingtons Draught Bitter, 3.4%Bud Light, 3.4%Carlsberg Danish Pilsner, 3.4%Coors Lager, 3.4%Foster's, 3.4%Greene King IPA, 3.4%Grolsch Premium Pilsner, 3.4%Rosa Blanca, 3.4%Sol, 3.4%Michelob Ultra, 3.5%John Smith's Extra Smooth, 3.6%Tetley's Smooth Flow, 3.6%Worthington's Creamflow, 3.6%Black Sheep Best Bitter, 3.8%Caffrey's Irish Ale, 3.8%Smithwick's, 3.8%Beck's, 4.0%Carling Original Lager, 4.0%Heineken Silver, 4.0%Murphy's Irish Stout, 4.0%Pravha, 4.0%Tennent's Lager, 4.0%Adnams Ghost Ship, 4.1%Guinness Draught, 4.1%Timothy Taylor's Landlord, 4.1%Wainwright Gold, 4.1%Guinness Extra Stout, 4.2%Peroni Nastro Azzurro Stile Capri, 4.2%Shepherd Neame Spitfire, 4.2%St Austell Tribute, 4.2%Sharp's Doom Bar Amber Ale, 4.3%Bass, 4.4%Cruzcampo Sevilla, 4.4%Pilsner Urquell, 4.4%Budweiser, 4.5%Cobra Premium, 4.5%Corona Extra, 4.5%Fuller's Frontier, 4.5%Kingfisher Premium Lager, 4.5%Perlenbacher Pilsner Lager, 4.5%Marston's Pedigree, 4.5%Miller Genuine Draft, 4.5%Modelo Especial, 4.5%M&S Spanish Lager, 4.5%Sharp's Atlantic Pale Ale, 4.5%Shipyard American Pale Ale, 4.5%Birra Moretti L'Autentica, 4.6%Estrella Damm, 4.6%Kirin Ichiban, 4.6%Kronenbourg 1664, 4.6%Madrí Excepcional, 4.6%Maltsmiths IPA and Pilsner, 4.6%Mythos, 4.6%Stella Artois, 4.6%Tuborg Green, 4.6%Carling Black Label Premium Lager, 4.7%Estrella Galicia Especial, 4.7%Fuller's London Pride, 4.7%Ichnusa, 4.7%Newcastle Brown Ale, 4.7%Red Stripe, 4.7%Tsingtao Premium Lager, 4.7%Birra Moretti Sale di Mare, 4.8%Birrificio Angelo Poretti 4 Luppoli, 4.8%Bitburger Premium Pils, 4.8%Carlsberg Expørt, 4.8%Estrella Damm Inedit, 4.8%Korev, 4.8%Krombacher Pils, 4.8%Lucky Buddha, 4.8%Mahou Cinco Estrellas, 4.8%Birra Menabrea Bionda, 4.8%Singha, 4.8%Tiger, 4.8%Warsteiner Premium Verum, 4.8%Hoegaarden, 4.9%Asahi Super Dry, 5.0%Bavaria Premium, 5.0%Budweiser Budvar Original, 5.0%Chang Classic, 5.0%Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier, 5.0%Greene King Abbot Ale, 5.0%Heineken Original 5%, 5.0%Hobgoblin Ruby, 5.0%Holsten Pils, 5.0%Kronenbourg 1664 Blanc, 5.0%Sagres, 5.0%San Miguel Especial, 5.0%Sapporo Premium Beer, 5.0%Staropramen Premium Czech Lager, 5.0%Stella Artois Unfiltered, 5.0%Tyskie Gronie, 5.0%Peroni Nastro Azzurro, 5.1%Brooklyn Brewery Brooklyn Lager, 5.2%Spaten Munchner Hell, 5.2%Erdinger Weissbier, 5.3%Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier, 5.4%Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier Naturtrub, 5.5%St Austell Proper Job, 5.5%Zywiec Premium, 5.5%Theakston Old Peculier, 5.6%Desperados, 5.9%Leffe Blonde, 6.0%
Foreign-branded, brewed in BritainGenuine importBritish brandNot established
A dot chart of UK strength for 106 beers, from 3.0% to 6.0%. 12 of them fall below the 3.5% duty threshold, and 11 of those sit at exactly 3.4%: Amstel, Banks's Amber Bitter, Boddingtons Draught Bitter, Bud Light, Carlsberg Danish Pilsner, Coors Lager, Foster's, Greene King IPA, Grolsch Premium Pilsner, Rosa Blanca and Sol. The largest stack on the chart is at 5.0%, with 16 beers. A further 12 below 3.0% and 5 above 6.0% fall outside the axis and are not plotted. 123 of the beers on the site have a UK strength on record.

The strength gap, beer by beer · why the 3.4% cluster exists

What this is

A record of where the beer on British supermarket shelves is actually brewed, who owns it, and how much weaker it is than the version sold in the country on the label. Every entry carries its sources and a date. Where we are not sure, we say so.

Why it matters

A lot of the lager sold here as Spanish, Italian, Dutch or Belgian is brewed in Burton, Tadcaster, Manchester, South Wales or Northampton. That is legal and has been normal for fifty years. What is less obvious is that the beer is often different: brewed to a lower strength to land under a UK duty threshold, sometimes to a changed recipe, and priced as an import. You are allowed to know that before you pay for it.

What to do with it

Look up a beer before you buy it. Read the small print on the can. And if you want a beer that is what it says it is, we keep a list of the imports that arrive at full strength and the British beers that are honest about being British.

Start here

The pretenders
38 beers sold under foreign branding and brewed in Britain
What to buy instead
Imports that arrive at full strength, and British beers that say so
Alternatives, beer by beer
Pick the beer you were going to buy: 33 of the pretenders have a page of what to drink instead
Weaker in Britain
The strength gap, beer by beer, and the duty band behind it
By country and by brand
Every beer we have checked, filterable
Who owns what
11 groups behind the brands on the shelf
How to read a can
Where the producer has to be named, and what the wording means

Recently changed

Every change, newest first

How we know

Every row carries a verification level. Verified means the UK brewer, the site, the strength and the owner each have a primary or trade-press source. Partly verified means at least one of those rests on a secondary source or an inference. Unverified means we have not found a source we trust, so the page is published for evidence rather than indexed. There are 18 of those, mostly supermarket own-label lagers whose producers are not published anywhere we can fetch.

How we check a beer, and what would change our mind. Almost every open question here would be closed by the small print on the base of a can, which is the one place the producer has to be named.