Thirsty Germans drink Beck’s brewery dry

1 August 2006

BREMEN, GERMANY – One of Germany’s top international beer brands, Beck’s, which ran out of beer in last month’s European heatwave, admitted Tuesday it would not be able to meet all orders before the end of August.

Beck’s lager, which is also brewed in Britain, Australia and the United States, is produced for the German market at five sites and sold in barrels, refundable bottles and disposable containers.

After glamorous advertising and deft marketing pushed up demand, the bottled product ran short in July, which set a record in Germany for sunshine hours. A weather station on Hiddensee island in the Baltic Sea measured 408 hours up to sundown Monday.

A spokesman for Inbev, the Belgian owner of Beck’s since 2002 and the world’s biggest brewer by volume, said it was impossible to make forecasts about when Beck’s would catch up, but it would “possibly” manage it this month. All bottling lines were working overtime.

Beck’s, which operates from Bremen in northern Germany, says it will compensate wholesale merchants “in some cases” for the delay.

An industry newsletter, Inside, calculated last month that Beck’s sales had risen 17 per cent this year, making it Germany’s number- three brand. Production last year totalled 2.7 million hectolitres.

Guenther Guder, a board member of the wholesale beverage merchants federation GFGH, said the other major German brands, Bitburger and Krombacher, had suffered shortages in June but had caught up.

DPA

Subject: German news, beer, Becks