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Two women gather for a drink outside a bar near the Colosseum in Rome on May 18, 2020.FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

As bars across Europe gradually reopen, up to a million free or prepaid beers are waiting to lure back wary consumers.

Beer makers from global giant Anheuser-Busch InBev to smaller craft brewers have set up schemes for consumers to buy drinks in advance to support shuttered bars with, in some cases, the reward of free beer when the doors reopen.

AB InBev launched its first scheme, “Café Courage,” in Belgium and has since sold more than 200,000 beers from Stella Artois, Jupiler and other brands. It also started similar schemes in 20 other markets across Europe and from Brazil to Hong Kong, raising more than £4.8-million about ($8.1-million) for pubs, bars and restaurants.

World No. 2 Heineken put the number of drinks sold through its various voucher schemes at 270,000.

Now that bars are opening, consumers have had their first chance to redeem coupons or vouchers.

Danish friends Arendse Rohland and Thomas Hoffner Lovgren were among those to profit from free beers after bars reopened there on May 18.

Danish brewer Carlsberg offered lagers in a bar to consumers who bought bottles or cans from stores in its “Adopt a Keg” scheme. The idea was to lure drinkers back with free drinks and hope that they would then buy more. Mr. Hoffner Lovgren and Ms. Rohland both seemed willing to do so.

“I rarely only drink one beer,” Ms. Rohland said after collecting a free drink at Carl’s Ol & Spisehus in a Copenhagen suburb.

Drinkers elsewhere are now in line. On Tuesday, France became the latest country to allow bars and restaurants to operate after the Netherlands on Monday. Ireland and Belgium are expected to follow later this month, with Britain in July.

Julian Marsili, Carlsberg global brand director, said its campaign would even continue into the summer.

“Travel will not be massive, at least outside Denmark, so we are encouraging people who want to adopt kegs to explore Denmark further in bars in the tourist places,” he said.

The schemes have helped, but not made up the shortfall. In Britain, the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) said pubs could have recorded their best April in a decade, selling 745 million pints in unseasonably warm and sunny weather.

The issue is acute for brewers, with about a third of beer typically consumed in pubs, bars or cafés. In value terms, that can rise to 60 per cent to 65 per cent, according to Pierre-Olivier Bergeron, secretary-general of the Brewers of Europe.

Beer sales in stores have risen, but are well below the rate of wine and spirits and not enough to make up for the loss of on-premise drinking, according to U.S. data from marketing research firm Nielsen.

WILL THEY COME?

Reopened bars and restaurants will clearly not operate as they did before the closings caused by the novel coronavirus, with limited time at the bar or table service, shorter hours and measures to minimize contact between staff and customers and to keep customers apart.

Emma McClarkin, BBPA chief executive, said the social distancing gap made a big difference. Two metres, currently used in Britain, might only allow only a third of Britain’s 47,000 pubs to reopen, while a one-metre rule, deemed safe by the World Health Organization, would allow 75 per cent to operate, she said.

Brewers have also been helping with some of the new hardware involved and learning from China, where restaurants and bars reopened in March.

Jan Craps, chief executive of Budweiser Brewing Co. APAC, said the AB InBev Asian subsidiary had sent “welcome kits” including hand sanitizer, gloves, masks and advice to 50,000 bars and restaurants across China and 1,000 plastic screens to help smaller venues separate groups of customers.

Mr. Craps said the kits were being replicated in many other countries, such as the Americas where the brewer has its largest markets.

A study of British pub-goers produced for the brewer found 93 per cent were keen to revisit their local and more than a third intend to visit within a week of reopening. A majority also wanted to keep two metres away from strangers.

Business will not resume as before. Belgian café and restaurant owners expect on average 45 per cent fewer customers as a result of social distancing measures and consumer wariness.

“It’s not a back to normal situation … establishments now reopening will be reopening under pretty special conditions,” Mr. Bergeron said.

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