The corona crisis has pushed beer sales in Germany to a historically low level. The breweries and beer warehouses sold 8.7 billion liters last year, 5.5 percent less than in 2019, as the Federal Statistical Office reported on Monday in Wiesbaden. It was the lowest value since the revision of the Beer Tax Act in 1993, which forms the basis of the statistics.
In 2020, the brewers missed the festivals and major events that had been canceled to ward off the pandemic. The closings of pubs and restaurants also led to less beer consumption. A quick increase in sales, however, was observed in the summer when the bars were allowed to reopen at short notice.
Beer consumption has been falling for years. According to tax statistics, 82.6 percent of the beer was sold domestically, which was 5.5 percent below the previous year's figure. Exports to the EU also fell significantly (- 13.1 percent), while 3.7 percent more beer was sold in non-EU countries.
