{"id":386255,"date":"2025-08-31T02:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T02:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/386255\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T02:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T02:17:13","slug":"young-germans-enjoy-alcohol-free-beer-as-lager-sales-fall-flat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/386255\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Germans enjoy alcohol-free beer as lager sales fall flat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bethany BellBBC News in Bavaria<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

Beer sales in Germany have fallen to their lowest level for 30 years<\/p>\n

Germans are drinking less and less beer, but non-alcoholic varieties are more popular than ever.<\/p>\n

Germany’s Destatis federal statistics office says non-alcoholic sales have more than doubled in recent years – up 109% since 2013 – even though beer sales more broadly are at their lowest level in more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

For the first time, they have fallen below 4bn litres in a half-year period. <\/p>\n

German beer sales slumped by 6.3% – or 262 million litres – to around 3.9bn litres in the first half of 2025, compared with the same period last year.<\/p>\n

The Erdinger brewery near Munich has been making beer since the 1880s, and its chief executive, Stefan Kreisz, says drinking habits are changing and these days about a quarter of their production is non-alcoholic.<\/p>\n

“We need to find a way to make beer, even if it’s non-alcoholic, attractive for young people. <\/p>\n

“You need to understand the ways they meet and the ways they party together. There’s no algorithm which tells you you need a beer now.”<\/p>\n

\"Bottles<\/p>\n

The sale of non-alcoholic beers has more than doubled since 2013<\/p>\n

Stefan Kreisz still sees the culture of German beer as resilient, and nowadays his company promotes its alcohol-free beer at sporting events, as a natural alternative to energy drinks.<\/p>\n

At the Caf\u00e9 Kosmos in Munich, barman Louis von Tucher says many of his customers are more health aware.<\/p>\n

“In the 2000s, I remember people being put off if you told them maybe you should have a glass of water\u2026 and they would be really offended.”<\/p>\n

Now, however, he has detected a change.<\/p>\n

“Everybody is a little bit more conscious about their consumption. I think most people still drink alcohol, but they do it more consciously and have alcohol-free beverages in between.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Magdalena, a student, believes that people her age drink less regularly than older generations but still enjoy a beer<\/p>\n

However Louis says full-strength beer is not going away.<\/p>\n

“It’s a slight shift, he said, I guess we sell 150 to 500 litres of normal beer at night, compared to maybe 20 litres of alcohol-free beer. So there’s still a huge gap between those two.”<\/p>\n

At the Sandkerwa folk festival in the town of Bamberg in northern Bavaria, the tradition of drinking alcoholic beer in Germany appears alive and well. <\/p>\n

During the five-day long celebration, Bamberg’s winding, medieval streets are filled with musicians, sausage stands and countless beer stalls doing a roaring trade.<\/p>\n

In the Sandstrasse in the old town, Pascal was having a beer with a friend.<\/p>\n

“Beer is very important for the city and we have a lot of breweries here,” he said. <\/p>\n

“People come here for the beer and for the fest. I can’t imagine that consumption of beer here in Bamberg is really less than before.”<\/p>\n

Standing outside a beer garden, Magdalena, a student, agreed.<\/p>\n

“I’m looking around, and everybody has a glass of beer in their hand. So I guess, especially in this part of Germany, beer is just a massive part of daily life, even though it’s not healthy. We all know that,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I feel like, especially in my generation, people tend to drink less on a daily basis, but it’s still Germany, it’s still Bavaria.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bethany BellBBC News in Bavaria BBC Beer sales in Germany have fallen to their lowest level for 30…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-386255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115120980173906847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}