Friday is international beer day, and we've got a barrel full of Grand Ducal beer facts for you.

We stumbled upon the fact that 6 August is International beer Day, and couldn't help but put together an article in celebration of this remarkably understated should-be-public-holiday.

The best way to celebrate would, of course, be to put together an impromptu beerfest here at RTL City and invite all of our readers.. but alas the times in which we live (and the resources available to us at such short notice) don't quite allow for that. So instead we've done what we do best (critics among us, do not that I said best, not well) and put together an article all about beer in the GD!

Imports, expots, sales, and consumption

According to the latest data from Brewers of Europe, Luxembourg imported 350,000HL of beer in 2019 - that's more than Portugal, who imported just 200,000HL that same year, despite having a population of over 10 million people. Our impressive figure also puts us ahead of Malta, Cyprus, Estonia, and Greece.

But we don't only buy the stuff, we sell it, too. That same year, we exported 94,000HL - while less than we brought in, it still means we flogged more of our bubbly barley booze abroad than did Malta (11,000HL), Cyprus (same as Malta), Norway (41,000HL), Switzerland (57,000HL), and Slovakia (87,000HL). Not bad eh?

As for the actual drinking of the stuff, we definitely prefer doing so at home (57% is 'off-trade'), and we do so in pretty decent quantities. Per capita, Luxembourgers drank 67 litres of beer in 2019 according to Brewers of Europe. That places us well ahead of France (33L), but well behind our German neighbours, who slurped down an almost unbelievable 100L per capita that same year.

Luxembourgish beers

Brewers of Europe's report says that Luxembourg was home to 33 active breweries in 2019, and 31 of them are classified as microbreweries. Now, this editor for one couldn't name anywhere near that many breweries based in the Grand Duchy.. and not for lack of exploration.

If you want to try out some Luxembourgish beers, we've got an overview of the ones we know of right here. And if you happen to know of some that we haven't got in our list yet.. let us know below!