As football supporters around the world prepare for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, one fan has taken his tournament preparations in a very unusual direction by collecting a beer from every nation competing in this summer’s expanded 48-team competition.
London-based music industry analyst Gus Hully spent more than a year assembling the collection, which features beers and beer-style malt drinks representing all participating countries in the tournament hosted across the United States, Mexico and Canada.
The idea was inspired by a fellow beer enthusiast who had unsuccessfully attempted a similar challenge during the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012. Hully himself is no stranger to ambitious collecting projects. After an unsuccessful effort ahead of the 2014 World Cup, he has successfully completed beer collections for every men’s and women’s major international football tournament since Euro 2016. He has even extended the concept to the Eurovision Song Contest, collecting drinks from participating countries in both 2022 and 2024.
Preparing for the 2026 tournament proved to be his toughest challenge yet. Hully began researching potential qualifiers in early 2025, keeping a close eye on international results and standings, particularly for nations whose beverages would be difficult to obtain.
Some discoveries came through chance encounters. While on holiday in Florida, he found a beer produced by Panamanian craft brewery Casa Bruja. Other countries required considerably more effort. To secure a drink representing Iraq, Hully purchased a bottle from a collector in Poland who had brought it back from the country as a souvenir several years earlier.
For nations where alcohol is restricted or unavailable, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, he turned to non-alcoholic malt beverages brewed with barley malt as the closest equivalent to beer. The search often involved trades with collectors across Europe. One exchange with a Finnish enthusiast secured a Qatari drink, while another trade helped him obtain a Saudi product.
Friends also contributed to the project by bringing beverages back from countries such as Curacao, Jordan and Algeria. According to Hully, roughly half of the collection was sourced outside the United Kingdom.
The final item to arrive was a non-alcoholic pineapple-flavoured malt drink from Iraq, completing the collection just weeks before the tournament begins. In total, the project cost around £250.
Rather than keeping the drinks untouched, Hully has a plan for each one. He intends to open and drink a country’s beverage once its national team has been eliminated from the World Cup, marking both its participation and exit from the tournament.
Although he would have liked to attend matches in person, Hully said the cost of travel, accommodation and tickets made the trip unrealistic. After the effort required to assemble beers from 48 nations, he believes this may be his final World Cup collection challenge, though he admits the smaller 24-team Euro 2028 tournament could tempt him back into the hunt.