Sonja Merz was not prepared for so much thirst. Around 3,000 Danish football fans drank all the beer in her “Biergarten im Schlossgarten” in Stuttgart within a few hours at the start of the European Championships. “I haven’t seen that since the 2006 World Cup,” the landlady reported to the local press. In Munich, pubs have temporarily run out of beer due to the Scottish fan groups’ enthusiasm for consumption, such as the “Woerner’s” café on Marienplatz.
Now the hopes and expectations of restaurateurs and breweries in Germany are rising. “The European Championships have great potential,” says Holger Eichele, General Manager of the German Brewers’ Association (DBB). But it can only be a summer fairytale if the weather plays along and the national team is successful. Then beer sales during the tournament could be several percentage points higher than usual in summer.
For Germany’s almost 1,500 breweries, this would at least mean a short breather. The industry has been in crisis for years and is losing sales and revenue. In 2023, 84 million hectoliters of beer were drunk domestically, reports the Federal Statistical Office. That is 4.5 percent less than in the previous year; there has rarely been a similarly severe slump. Eichele therefore speaks of a “pitch-black year”. Especially since sales were still below those of the Corona years 2020 and 2021, in which lockdowns caused pub closures and the cancellation of numerous festivals and celebrations.
The industry is particularly concerned about the long-term trend. “The pace of market losses is worrying,” says Volker Kuhl, Sales Director at the Veltins brewery. Around ten million hectoliters were lost in the decade from 2007 to 2017. “After that, the same amount disappeared in just six years,” says Kuhl. “For many breweries, the air is now getting increasingly thin.” Especially since investments in modern and environmentally friendly facilities are pending in many places. “But many cannot afford this green transformation process.”
In fact, bankruptcies and business closures are already the order of the day. Across the country, business sites and even entire companies are being closed. The background to this is a mixture of sharply increased costs for raw materials and energy as well as for logistics and personnel, coupled with declining consumption and thus falling revenues.
“Consumers’ reluctance to buy is having a major impact,” says DBB boss Eichele, pointing to the long-standing high inflation. Added to this is a ruinous price war in retail. In the long term, there is also the fact that younger people in particular are drinking less alcohol due to increased health awareness.
And demographic change is also noticeable, as older people generally drink less beer. The proportion of non-alcoholic beers is increasing. “Soon, one in ten beers brewed in Germany will be non-alcoholic,” says Eichele.
It remains to be seen whether the hoped-for EM effect can cover up the structural problems for the year as a whole. The Brewers’ Association is skeptical. “The situation remains tense,” says Eichele. “You have to be a great optimist to calculate growth rates for the beer market.” And hope that as many drinking fans as possible will continue to go on pub crawls.
