Statistics Office Says German Beer Sales Rose Due To FIFA World Cup

The German Statistics Office said that beer sales rose in Germany, Europe's biggest producer, in the first half of the year "thanks to a big jump in demand" during the FIFA World Cup in June, according to Emma Anderson of REUTERS. The increase "is good news for brewers in Germany, whose sales have suffered for most of the last two decades." Around 48 million hectoliters of beer "were sold in the first six months of the year," an increase of 4.4% from the same period last year. The office said, "The rise in sales in the first half of the year was driven by (a sharp increase) in June, when the World Cup tournament began in Brazil." The DBB brewing association said that the last annual rise in beer sales was in '06 "when Germany hosted the World Cup." Germans "still drink more beer per head than most of the world, trailing only their neighbours in the Czech Republic and Austria" (REUTERS, 7/31).