Germany: Beer sales down 2.5% in January-November

Last summer’s hot weather would make one think beer sales would improve in Germany, but volumes dropped by record 11.4% in August – the lowest in the last three years, Les Echos reported on January 5.

In January-November 2019, beer sales in Germany are estimated to have dropped by 2.5% to around 85.2 mln hl, analysts said.

Demographic reasons are cited as the main factor causing the decline in beer consumption. The trend has persisted for a long time now: in 1990, average per capita beer consumption in Germany was 143 litres, dropping to around a hundred by 2017.

Consumers are also switching to higher value brands: even though lagers still represent one of every two glasses of beer consumed in Germany, craft and regional beers are enjoying a surge in demand. According to a forecast by Les Echos, the 450 beer brands produced by Germany’s 1,500 breweries today could total 7,000 by the end of 2020.

Besides, zero-alcohol beer and so called Radlers are also growing in popularity: one in every fifteen beers produced in Germany today does not contain alcohol. According to the Federation of German Brewers, the country is the global leader in production of zero-alcohol beers.

The brewers are cautiously looking forward to this summer, when the European soccer championship is expected to boost demand for their production.

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