Day of Beer: Increasingly more breweries are closing down
Falling beer sales and high costs are affecting breweries. Why small businesses are particularly affected and which federal states still have many breweries.
Wiesbaden. The decline of breweries in Germany continues. Last year, the number of production facilities fell by 53 to 1,415, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office on the International Beer Day (August 7). Compared to the long-term high of 1,552 breweries in 2019, there were even 137 fewer breweries. The background to this development is the declining sales in beer over years, combined with sharply rising costs.
Although demand for non-alcoholic beer is increasing, this cannot compensate for the volume losses in conventional beer. In 2025, Bavaria still had the highest number with 588 breweries, followed by Baden-Württemberg with 190 and North Rhine-Westphalia with 131 breweries. More than half of all operations produce a maximum of 100,000 liters per year. However, there were also closures among larger companies.
Translated by urgent.news. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
