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The corona crisis is severely affecting breweries in Germany.

Last year, their beer sales fell to the historically low value of 8.7 billion liters due to the ban on celebrations and the catering trade that was closed for months, as the Federal Statistical Office reported on Monday in Wiesbaden.

But the decline in volume by 5.5 percent or 508.2 million liters compared to the previous year shows the dramatic situation only very inadequately, according to the brewers' association.

Smaller companies in particular have long had to struggle to survive, while a few large breweries have benefited from the increased retail sales of bottled beer.

The big bankruptcy wave was still missing, said Holger Eichele, President of the German Brewers Association.

He is usually proud of the diverse brewing traditions in the country.

The association has listed more than 1400 companies nationwide, most of which sell their beer only in the immediate vicinity of their brewery.

"They notice every failed folk festival." The problem is exacerbated with the ongoing Corona ban for pubs and restaurants, because they no longer buy draft beer.

But this is the particularly lucrative business with high added value for the breweries.

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According to its own classification, the Berlin brewery Lemke is “very gastro-heavy” and is looking for new sales channels via the Internet and wants to benefit from the capital's cool export image.

“No company can cope with a decline in sales of more than half in the long run,” said founder Oli Lemke, who no longer wants to rule out layoffs in the current year.

At least there is now a prospect of state aid: “After the latest changes, we can now get the November / December aid for the catering industry.

Our tax consultants are working to the limit because everything is extremely complex. "

The big names in the industry were able to better compensate for their gastro losses with increased bottled beer sales through the food retail trade.

The specialist portal “Inside” sees comparatively small losses in volume with well-known national brands such as Krombacher (-4.8 percent), Oettinger (-1.5 percent) or Veltins (-3.5 percent).

Bitburger (-8.0 percent) and Warsteiner (-16.2 percent) were hit harder with their higher gastro shares.

"Without countermeasures, many breweries face the end"

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"We can only dream of that," said Christian Kerner from the Cologne Brewery Association.

In the cathedral city, the breweries traditionally sell a very high proportion of their Kölsch directly over the bars of the restaurants, so they are particularly hard hit by the repeated lockdown.

And because the carnival season is also canceled this year, things could get even worse in 2021.

The Brewers' Association demands further help: "Far-reaching aid measures have been developed for the catering industry - the 1,500 mostly artisanal and medium-sized breweries who are indirectly affected, however, with a few exceptions, are left with nothing," said Eichele.

“From week to week, more breweries find themselves in dire straits through no fault of their own.

If the federal and state governments do not take targeted and decisive countermeasures, many breweries are threatened with bankruptcy. "