The recent bad weather took its toll on Magners, the over-ice cider, with volumes shipped to UK pubs from Ireland down nearly a fifth.
Reporting on trading since December 1, 2010, C&C Group, which manufactures and distributes Magners cider in the UK, said the poor weather "appears to have encouraged consumers to stay at home, weighting the festive demand further in favour of the off-trade as a consequence"
Volumes going into the on-trade were down 19 per cent, it said.
However C&C added that December shipments of Magners to the UK off-trade were up 52 per cent, although this was against a weak set of comparatives in December 2009.
The group said a number of factors, including absorbing the last duty rise, plus marketing costs associated with the off-trade, meant overall UK net revenues for the last three months were down by five per cent.
But it pointed to an overall good performance in the off-trade, which, it added, "leaves us confident that we have now achieved our initial goal of volume growth for Magners in line with the category market growth".
Overall shipments of Magners in the UK were 24 per cent ahead during December, while C&C described its beer volumes as level, year-on-year through the Christmas period.
