Foster’s named Britain’s favourite summer beer
Anyone stocking the fridge for the August bank holiday may want to reach for a Foster’s after new research identified it as the beer most closely associated with summer.
Foster’s has been named the UK’s leading summer beer following an analysis of customer reviews for 40 popular lagers, ales and stouts.
Research by Bitz.io examined reviews published on Amazon UK and measured how frequently each beer was mentioned alongside summer occasions such as hot days, barbecues, beer gardens, festivals, holidays and trips to the beach.
Foster’s topped the ranking with 119 summer-related mentions per 1,000 reviews – more than double the rate recorded by any other beer and more than four times the average across all 40 brands.
Heineken finished second with 58.2 mentions per 1,000 reviews, narrowly ahead of Corona Extra on 58.
Blue Moon took fourth place with 52.6 mentions, followed by Madrí Excepcional with 45.5. Coors and Peroni Nastro Azzurro shared sixth place, each recording 35.7 summer mentions per 1,000 reviews.
Red Stripe, Cobra and Sharp’s Doom Bar completed the top 10.
The study found that several other household names were mentioned in a summer setting much less frequently.
Stella Artois recorded 13.4 summer-related mentions per 1,000 reviews, while Guinness achieved 8.2 and San Miguel recorded 6.9.
Gabriele Asaro, head of research at Bitz.io, said: “The beer people call a summer drink is the one they reach for without thinking, at a barbecue or out in the garden, rather than the one with the glossiest advert.
“If you are stocking a fridge for a hot weekend, the reviews suggest a simple, cheap lager does the job just as well as anything pricier.”
The analysis used the highest-rated alcoholic multipack listing available for each beer on Amazon UK. Alcohol-free products and individual cans were excluded.
A review was counted as summer-related if it contained at least one term from a predetermined list, including “summer”, “sunshine”, “heatwave”, “hot day”, “warm weather”, “beer garden”, “beach”, “barbecue”, “festival” or “holiday”.
The Foster’s finding was subsequently tested against customer reviews published by Asda and Sainsbury’s, where the lager also finished first.
Researchers said promotional reviews solicited by brands were removed from the supermarket analysis. The result remained unchanged when the data was restricted to reviews posted between May and August.
However, the number of reviews varied considerably between products. The Foster’s result was based on 10 summer-related references among 84 reviews, compared with 13 among 224 reviews for Corona Extra and 11 among 189 for Heineken.
The 10 beers most associated with summer
- Foster’s – 119 mentions per 1,000 reviews
- Heineken – 58.2
- Corona Extra – 58
- Blue Moon – 52.6
- Madrí Excepcional – 45.5
- Coors – 35.7
- Peroni Nastro Azzurro – 35.7
- Red Stripe – 33.3
- Cobra – 33.3
- Sharp’s Doom Bar – 31.2
