Overview
- The Federal Statistical Office released 2025 figures showing 1,415 breweries in Germany, a drop of 53 from 2024 and 137 from the 2019 peak, and recorded beer sales of about 7.8 billion liters in 2025.
- Beer volume fell about 6.0% versus 2024 and 15.7% versus 2019, a trend statisticians cite as a key reason for the steady loss of breweries across nearly all size categories.
- Bavaria remains the state with the most breweries (588), followed by Baden-Württemberg (190) and North Rhine‑Westphalia (131), while only Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern and Saxony‑Anhalt showed year‑on‑year increases in 2025.
- The sector is dominated by small brewers: 821 producers make at most 100,000 liters a year, while just eight breweries produced 200 million liters or more, and declines were reported at nearly every scale.
- Industry voices say changing habits — people going out less and shifting toward non‑alcoholic beer — are squeezing family breweries and regional suppliers, prompting closures, wider consolidation and calls for policy support.