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Beer sales continue their gradual slide

Beer sales continued their slow decline in Germany last year, dropping another 2.9 percent with the average person drinking a sip or two over 100 litres of the liquid gold.

Beer sales continue their gradual slide
Photo: DPA

The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), reported Thursday that Germany’s beer producing and storing establishments sold 9.83 billion litres of beer in 2010, including exports. This was 1.7 percent less than the 10 billion litres sold in 2009.

The drop was even sharper when it came to domestic sales, which fell 2.9 percent to 8.34 billion litres, or 101.7 litres per person.

Beer sales within Germany have fallen every year since 2000 with the notable exception of 2006, when Germany co-hosted the World Cup.

Premixed beer drinks such as Radler are becoming more popular. Beer mixed with lemonade, cola, fruit juice and other non-alcoholic drinks made up about 4 percent of the total beer consumption. That was a significant increase on the 2.7 percent these drinks accounted for in 2009.

The 1.47 billion litres of German beer sold to other countries was a rise of 5.9 percent. Of this, 1.1 billion litres went to other European Union countries – a rise of 2.6 percent – and 370 million litres went outside the EU – a rise of 17.7 percent.

Another 20 million litres went home with lucky brewery workers as a free perk of the job.

The biggest-consuming states last year, as with the years before, were the populous North Rhine-Westphalia, which accounted for 24.7 percent of domestic sales, and Bavaria, which accounted for 21.9 percent. North-Rhine Westphalia’s consumption gets a considerable boost each year from Karneval in the Rhineland city of Cologne, while Bavaria of course gets a kick out of Munich beer festival Oktoberfest.

The Local/djw

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FOOD AND DRINK

Danish chef wants to launch gourmet dining to stratosphere

Danish chef Rasmus Munk wants to take high-end cuisine to the edge of space, with plans to serve up a stratospheric dining experience in 2025, his restaurant said Thursday.

Danish chef wants to launch gourmet dining to stratosphere

“The expedition will take place aboard Space Perspective Spaceship Neptune, the world’s first carbon-neutral spaceship,” Alchemist, the Copenhagen restaurant that has earned Munk two Michelin stars, said in a statement.

“They will dine as they watch the sunrise over the Earth’s curvature” at an altitude of 100,000 feet (30,000 metres) above sea level, it said.

For $495,000 per ticket, six tourists will embark on a six-hour journey in a pressurised space capsule that will rise into the stratosphere in a hydrogen-filled “SpaceBalloon”.

The 32-year-old chef and self-confessed space enthusiast will be joining the trip.

READ ALSO: World-famous Copenhagen restaurant to close after 2024

Munk promises “dishes inspired by the role of space exploration during the last 60 years of human history, and the impact it has had on our society — both scientifically and philosophically”.

His menu will be restricted only by his inability to cook food over an open flame.

Many of the ingredients will be prepared on the ship from which the capsule is launched, according to Alchemist, which is ranked fifth among the world’s restaurants in 2023 according to the World’s Best 50 Restaurants guide.

In recent decades, Denmark has emerged as a gastronomical powerhouse on terra firma, with the Copenhagen restaurants Noma and Geranium both having held the title of the world’s best restaurant.

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