Glass half empty? Germany's annual beer sales down again despite soccer's European Championship

A waitress prepares beer mugs in the Augustiner marquee for the start of the 189th 'Oktoberfest' beer festival in Munich, Germany, on Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

BERLIN — German beer sales declined last year even as the country hosted the European Football Championship, continuing a long-term downward trend that has seen sales drop by more than 10% in the past decade to their lowest level since at least the early 1990s.

Official figures released Monday showed that German-based breweries and distributors sold about 8.3 billion liters (nearly 2.2 billion gallons) of beer last year, which was a 1.4% decline on the previous year. The figure doesn’t include non-alcoholic beer and beer imported from outside the European Union.

The latest figure was not as steep as the 4.5% drop seen in 2023, when sales resumed their downward slide after a recovery at home and in the EU following the end of COVID-19 restrictions. But, after years in which sales have mostly dropped, they were 13.7% lower last year than they were in 2014, the Federal Statistical Office said.

German brewers have been struggling with a long-term downward trend fueled by health concerns and other factors.

Sales inside Germany — which account for more than 80% of the total — dropped 2% last year to 6.8 billion liters. A 1.6% increase in exports, fueled by a 3.1% rise in sales to other countries in the EU, couldn’t compensate for that. Sales to other countries were down 0.3%.

Germany hosted the annual soccer competition, a magnet for beer-drinking fans, in June and July last year. It coincided in part with unusually wet summer weather, which appears to have kept people away from beer gardens.

The Associated Press