German beer sales resume downward trend after a post-COVID pickup

Beer bottles are filled at the Veltins beer brewery in Meschede, Germany, on Aug. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

BERLIN — Sales by German beer brewers and distributors resumed a long-term downward trend in the first six months of this year after picking up a bit in 2022 thanks to the end of most COVID-19 restrictions, official figures showed Tuesday.

Sales dropped to 4.2 billion liters (1.1 billion gallons) in the January-June period, 2.9 percent lower than a year earlier, the Federal Statistical Office said. The figure includes domestic sales and exports of German beer, as well as beer imported from other European Union countries for sale in Germany. It excludes alcohol-free beer and beer imported from countries outside the EU.

Sales inside Germany, which accounted for 82 percent of the total, were down 3.5 percent to 3.4 billion liters (899 million gallons). Exports were only slightly down — German brewers exported 404 million liters (106.7 million gallons) of beer to other countries in the European Union, a 0.4% decline, and 347.9 million liters (91.9 million gallons) to nations outside the EU, 0.2 percent less than a year earlier.

German brewers have been struggling with a longer-term downward trend fueled by health concerns and other factors, although last year saw a slight recovery after lockdowns shut restaurants and bars for long periods in 2020 and 2021.

The overall figure for the first half of the year is 12.2 percent lower than a decade earlier, the statistics office said.

The statistics office said separately on Tuesday that more than 474 million liters (125.2 million gallons) of alcohol-free beer were produced in Germany last year, nearly twice as much as a decade earlier. But that compares with more than 7.6 billion liters (2 billion gallons) of alcoholic beer.