Beer Apocalypse – Germany Is Running Out Of Beer Bottles

It’s been a scorcher of a summer in Europe and that’s both good news and bad news.

The good news is the unusually high temperatures have led to near record levels of beer consumption in countries like Germany…The bad news is that even though Germany is cranking out beer, they’re running out of bottles to put it in.

Here’s the deal…

As part of the country’s ongoing commitment to the environment, beer bottles are recycled in Germany…. Customers pay a small deposit on each one, which they get back when they return it to a store according to NPR.

At any given time there are about 4 billion and each bottle is refilled up to 30 times, according to Inside magazine.

But the summer’s record heat, and the recent World Cup competitions have led to huge beer sales in Germany. And although Germans are crating beer home in record numbers, they’re not returning the empties in a timely manner.

And since Germans refuse to drink beer out of cans, (this is the country that’s enforced the Reinheitsgebot purity law for 500 years after all), bottles remain a precious commodity with some smaller brewers ordering their bottles a year in advance according to Fortune.

Things have gotten so bad in Germany that brewers like Christian Schuster from Bavaria’s Greif Brewery are taking the crisis to the airwaves…

“We’ve had a beer bottle shortage since the middle of May,” Schuster told public broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk. “We can’t get hold of used ones fast enough, and ordering new ones takes time. I’m having to send my delivery guys out to look for old, empty bottles.”

“We need your help!” the Moritz Fiege brewery posted on Facebook. “Although we regularly buy new bottles, we’re running out. So before you go on your summer holiday, please be sure to return your Moritz Fiege empties.”

That brewery’s plea speaks to another part of Germany’s beer bottle problem…Many of these bottles have imprinted branding and not interchangeable…The Moritz Fiege brewery doesn’t just need any beer bottle returned…It needs it’s specific bottles returned!

Beer’s had its share of problems in Europe this year. First the CO₂ shortage and now this…

It’s enough to make one drink…just not out of a bottle.