Young Germans enjoy alcohol-free beer as lager sales fall flat

Germans are drinking less and less beer, but non-alcoholic varieties are more popular than ever.

Germany’s Destatis federal statistics office says non-alcoholic sales have more than doubled in recent years – up 109% since 2013 – even though beer sales more broadly are at their lowest level in more than 30 years.

For the first time, they have fallen below 4bn litres in a half-year period.

German beer sales slumped by 6.3% – or 262 million litres – to around 3.9bn litres in the first half of 2025, compared with the same period last year.

The Erdinger brewery near Munich has been making beer since the 1880s, and its chief executive, Stefan Kreisz, says drinking habits are changing and these days about a quarter of their production is non-alcoholic.

“We need to find a way to make beer, even if it’s non-alcoholic, attractive for young people.

“You need to understand the ways they meet and the ways they party together. There’s no algorithm which tells you you need a beer now.”

Stefan Kreisz still sees the culture of German beer as resilient, and nowadays his company promotes its alcohol-free beer at sporting events, as a natural alternative to energy drinks.

At the Café Kosmos in Munich, barman Louis von Tucher says many of his customers are more health aware.

“In the 2000s, I remember people being put off if you told them maybe you should have a glass of water… and they would be really offended.”

Now, however, he has detected a change.

“Everybody is a little bit more conscious about their consumption. I think most people still drink alcohol, but they do it more consciously and have alcohol-free beverages in between.”

However Louis says full-strength beer is not going away.

“It’s a slight shift, he said, I guess we sell 150 to 500 litres of normal beer at night, compared to maybe 20 litres of alcohol-free beer. So there’s still a huge gap between those two.”

At the Sandkerwa folk festival in the town of Bamberg in northern Bavaria, the tradition of drinking alcoholic beer in Germany appears alive and well.

During the five-day long celebration, Bamberg’s winding, medieval streets are filled with musicians, sausage stands and countless beer stalls doing a roaring trade.

In the Sandstrasse in the old town, Pascal was having a beer with a friend.

“Beer is very important for the city and we have a lot of breweries here,” he said.

“People come here for the beer and for the fest. I can’t imagine that consumption of beer here in Bamberg is really less than before.”

Standing outside a beer garden, Magdalena, a student, agreed.

“I’m looking around, and everybody has a glass of beer in their hand. So I guess, especially in this part of Germany, beer is just a massive part of daily life, even though it’s not healthy. We all know that,” she said.

“I feel like, especially in my generation, people tend to drink less on a daily basis, but it’s still Germany, it’s still Bavaria.”