The back of the can, read for you
40 beers sold as foreign are brewed in Britain.
Madrí, Birra Moretti, Stella Artois, Cruzcampo, San Miguel and Staropramen are sold as Spanish, Italian, Belgian or Czech, and made in Tadcaster, Manchester, South Wales, Lancashire or Burton, often to a lower strength. Sold as foreign means the branding says another country: the name, the flag, the story on the pack. 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.
By Mark Porter, one person in the UK. Last checked 25 September 2026. In the press.
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. 26 of the beers on this site are weaker in Britain than in their home market, and 15 of those are brewed in Britain to a lower strength than the version sold at home; the rest are imported, wholly or partly, or their supply is not established. The reason is largely visible in one number: UK alcohol duty steps up sharply at 3.5%, which is why twelve beers on this site sit at exactly 3.4%, whether they were cut to get there or brewed there from the start.
The numbers behind the chart
| UK strength | Beers | Of which sold as foreign and brewed here |
|---|---|---|
| 3.3% | 1 | 1 |
| 3.4% | 12 | 5 |
| 3.5% | 1 | 0 |
| 3.6% | 3 | 0 |
| 3.8% | 3 | 1 |
| 4.0% | 6 | 3 |
| 4.1% | 4 | 0 |
| 4.2% | 4 | 0 |
| 4.3% | 1 | 0 |
| 4.4% | 2 | 1 |
| 4.5% | 13 | 5 |
| 4.6% | 10 | 6 |
| 4.7% | 10 | 1 |
| 4.8% | 15 | 6 |
| 4.9% | 1 | 0 |
| 5.0% | 16 | 6 |
| 5.1% | 1 | 0 |
| 5.2% | 2 | 0 |
| 5.3% | 1 | 0 |
| 5.4% | 2 | 0 |
| 5.5% | 3 | 0 |
| 5.6% | 1 | 0 |
| 5.9% | 1 | 0 |
| 6.0% | 1 | 0 |
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, Belgian or Czech is brewed in Burton, Tadcaster, Manchester, South Wales, Lancashire 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
Recently changed
- 12 October 2026: batch: sources
- 1 October 2026: Murphy's Irish Stout: verification notes
- 25 September 2026: Sabor Premium Lager: (row)
- 21 September 2026: Tuborg Green: verification notes
- 21 September 2026: Miller Genuine Draft: verification notes
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 twelve 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. The site collects nothing about you beyond optional visit counts; the privacy page says exactly what.