beverages
Every tenth German beer will soon be alcohol-free
Non-alcoholic beverages are becoming increasingly popular. photo
© Christophe Gateau/dpa
Clearer head, fewer calories: The trend towards non-alcoholic beer has long since left the niche and is getting bigger and bigger. Every tenth beer brewed in Germany will soon be alcohol-free.
“Since 2007, the production of non-alcoholic beers in Germany has more than doubled – to a good 670 million liters in 2022. We expect that soon every tenth beer brewed in Germany will be non-alcoholic,” says the chief executive of the German Brewers’ Association , Holger Eichel.
For years, one has observed how the image of non-alcoholic beers is changing, says Eichele. “The times when non-alcoholic beers were mainly drunk by drivers 20 or 30 years ago are long gone.” Beer without alcohol is no longer perceived as a substitute. Consumers often appreciate the “low number of calories” compared to alcoholic beer.
GDR was a pioneer in non-alcoholic beer
The German Brewers’ Association emphasizes that non-alcoholic beers have “a long history” in Germany. The GDR was a pioneer, in which master brewer Ulrich Wappler developed an alcohol-free beer at the Engelhardt brewery in Stralau (Berlin-Friedrichshain). “The beer was presented to the public for the first time in 1972 at the Leipzig Trade Fair under the name “AuBi” (car driver’s beer).”
At the end of the 1970s, the first non-alcoholic beers were also launched in the Federal Republic of Germany. A significant year is 1979, when “Clausthaler” from the Binding brewery in Frankfurt was introduced nationally. The brand now belongs to the Radeberger Group and thus to the Oetker family group (Bielefeld).
Tradition of non-alcoholic beer in Switzerland too
In Germany today there are many non-alcoholic beer brands, for example “Beck’s Blue”, “Bitburger 0.0”, “Flensburger Frei” and “Jever Fun”. In other beer nations, such as Belgium and the Czech Republic, you will find far less on offer. Switzerland, on the other hand, has a longer tradition, where the alcohol-free “Ex-Bier” from Feldschlösschen (Rheinfelden, Canton Aargau) was available early on and from 1965 the “Oro” (later “Birell”) developed by Hürlimann in Zurich.
The editor-in-chief of the bar culture magazine “Mixology”, Nils Wrage, says about Germany’s love of non-alcoholic beer: “In the course of the increasing international interest in non-alcoholic variants of originally alcoholic products – including wine and spirits – the landscape of non-alcoholic German beers is also getting bigger in the English-speaking world trade press a lot of new attention.”