0.5 liters for 7.50 euros
Brewers expect “most expensive beer garden summer ever”
05/08/2023 09:26 am
The sharply increased costs for energy, raw materials and higher wages in breweries are reflected in beer prices. Half a liter for 7.50 euros has long been considered “utopian”, and the first pubs have already broken through the mark.
The Berlin-Brandenburg Brewery Association expects the “most expensive beer garden summer of all time”. That said Vice-Chairman Stefan Fritsche of the “Bild” newspaper. Consumers are already paying “top prices, especially for draft beer in beer gardens, pubs and restaurants”.
Prices that no one would have thought possible just a few months ago have meanwhile “been established on a broad front on the market,” Fritsche continued. A price above five euros for half a liter of draft beer is now “standard” in many places. The beer price of 7.50 euros for half a liter, which was still considered “utopian” at the beginning of the year, has already been breached in the first pubs.
Fritsche, head of the Neuzelle monastery brewery in Brandenburg, told the newspaper that he was “relieved” about the higher prices. Regional breweries in particular are dependent on this in order to cushion the sharp rise in costs for energy, raw materials and higher wages. He now sees “the chances that we can still preserve the colorful diversity of German brewing tradition,” said the association’s vice president.
In 2022, Germans were more thirsty for beer than in the previous year, which was even more affected by the Corona crisis. The breweries and beer warehouses in this country have loud According to the Federal Statistical Office, a total of around 8.8 billion liters of the alcoholic drink were sold last year. However, annual beer sales in Germany have been falling steadily for a long time: in the past ten years alone, they have fallen by 7.4 percent.
With a view to the growth of 232.6 million liters compared to 2021, the German Brewers’ Association speaks of a slight recovery. “If you compare these figures with the pre-Corona year 2019, it becomes clear that domestic beer sales in 2022, at minus five percent, were still well below the level of the pre-crisis period and the breweries can no longer make up for the losses they have suffered in the meantime,” explained the brewers. “Even full beer gardens in the summer of the century 2022 could not change that.”