The rule
What independent means here
BREWNION lists independent breweries and leaves out the plants owned by the international groups. That is the most opinionated decision on this site, so this page sets out exactly how it is decided, who is left out, and how to tell us when we have it wrong.
10,142
Independent, listed
420
Group owned, left out
107
Groups on the list
226
With a named owner
How it is decided
Three signals, in order of trust
1
The owner recorded in Wikidata
An open database of companies and who owns them. Where it names a parent company, that is the strongest evidence we have, and it is public so anyone can check it.
2
The brand or operator on the map entry
OpenStreetMap contributors often record which company runs a site. It is patchy, filled in for only a few percent of entries, but where it exists it is reliable.
3
The name itself
Some breweries carry the group in their name and there is nothing to work out. This catches the obvious ones that the two databases have simply never recorded.
And then a list kept by hand
None of the three is complete. Ownership changes quietly and open databases lag by years: one well known national brewery sat in Wikidata for a decade with no owner recorded at all and walked straight past the automatic test. So the groups are also written down in a plain text file that a person edits. It is not clever, but it is honest about what it is, and it is published below in full.
Left out
The groups on the list
Any brewery whose name, brand, operator or recorded owner contains one of these is kept out of the directory. Matching ignores case and accents, so “carlsberg” catches both Carlsberg Croatia and Carlsberg Group.
Multinational groups
- anheuser-busch
- ab inbev
- inbev
- heineken
- brau union
- carlsberg
- molson coors
- molson
- asahi
- kirin
- suntory
- diageo
- guinness
- efes
- sabmiller
- castel
Germany and Austria
- radeberger
- oetker
- warsteiner
- bitburger
- krombacher
- veltins
- paulaner
- erdinger
- beck's
- hasseroder
- koenig-brauerei
- stiegl
- gosser
- puntigamer
- zipfer
- ottakringer
- schwechater
Benelux, France, Britain, Ireland
- kronenbourg
- grolsch
- amstel
- stella artois
- jupiler
- bavaria
- swinkels
- brand bier
- alken-maes
- greene king
- marston
- carling
- tennent
- smithwick
- harp lager
Iberia and Italy
- mahou
- san miguel
- estrella damm
- damm
- cruzcampo
- amstel espana
- peroni
- moretti
- menabrea
Nordics
- royal unibrew
- olvi
- harboe
- tuborg
- ringnes
- hansa borg
- falcon
- pripps
- norrlands guld
Central and eastern Europe
- zywiec
- kompania piwowarska
- tyskie
- lech browary
- okocim
- plzensky prazdroj
- pilsner urquell
- staropramen
- krusovice
- gambrinus
- budweiser budvar
- dreher
- soproni
- borsodi
- ursus
- timisoreana
- ciuc
- zagorka
- kamenitza
- shumensko
Former Yugoslavia
- zagrebacka pivovara
- karlovacka pivovara
- osjecka pivovara
- pan pivovara
- lasko
- pivovarna union
- apatinska pivara
- jelen pivo
- bip pivara
- niksicka pivara
- trebjesa
- sarajevska pivara
- banjalucka pivara
- skopsko
- pivara skopje
Other
- tsingtao
- united breweries
- obolon
- chernigivske
- lvivske
- baltika
For example
Breweries this keeps out
„Švyturio“ alaus darykla
Lithuania
Owner on file: Carlsberg Group
A. Le Coq
Estonia
Owner on file: Olvi
ÅBEN Carlsberg Byen
Denmark
Owner on file: ÅBEN Carlsberg Byen
Albani
Denmark
Owner on file: Royal Unibrew
Alken-Maes
Belgium
Owner on file: Alken-Maes
Allgäuer Brauhaus
Germany
Owner on file: Allgäuer Brauhaus AG (Radeberger Gruppe)
Anheuser-Busch InBev
Belgium
Owner on file: Anheuser-Busch InBev
Apatinska Brewery
Serbia
Owner on file: Molson Coors Brewing Company
Astika Brewery
Bulgaria
Owner on file: InBev Belgium
Athenian Brewery
Greece
Owner on file: Heineken International
Baltika Breweries
Russia
Owner on file: Carlsberg Group
Banjalučka Pivara
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Owner on file: Banjalučka Pivara
Carry it with you
The badge
Any brewery listed here as independent can put this on its own website. It links back to this page, so anyone who clicks it can read the rule rather than take a badge’s word for it. Free, on every plan, including the free one.
<a href="https://brewnion.com/independent" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<img src="https://brewnion.com/badge/independent.svg"
alt="Verified independent on BREWNION" width="220" height="64">
</a>Did we get it wrong?
If your brewery is independent and you cannot find it here, or if you spot a group brewery sitting in the list as though it were one of yours, tell us and it gets corrected. The list changes by hand, which is exactly why a message can change it.