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Germans have the reputation for having the best beer in the world. And its soooo true. Of all the breweries in the world, Germany has half of them. And of this 50%, half of them reside in Bavaria! So 25% of the Breweries in the world are concetrated in one german state! (it is the largest German state by the way) May be you've herd of the German Reinheitsgebot, or the "purity law". This states that beer may only have four ingredients such as water, malt, hops and yeast. This law was passed in Bavaria in the year 1516 in order to protect the beer consumer. Before this law people brewing beer were putting all kinds of funny stuff into the beer, with the results being many sicknesses with the consumers. This purity law is still strictly practiced in Germany and only until a few years ago Germany would not import or sell beer not made by the reinheitsgebot, thus making the beer market in Germany exclusively german. Interestingly, Guiness was able to enter the german beer market since it made a special export beer brewed just for the germans.
The beer consumers in Germany, especially Bavaria, still buy exclusively german beer since they know where the qualtiy is. This has been quite frustrating for foriegn investors since no one will buy thier products. So what you can imagine what the Belgians did since no one was buying their Belgian beer. The just decided to buy out the market! Of the six main Munich breweries (Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Augustiener. Hofbr�u, L�wenbr�u, Spaten) only Augustiener and Hofbr�u are still locally owned, the rest are owned by the Belgians. Also Budweiser (the one based in St. Louis, not the original Czec Budweiser) bought the beer rights for the 2006 Soccer World Championship. That meant that no other beer besides Budweiser would be sold at the events in Munich and EVEN beer stands within a certain radius of the soccer stadium. OBVIOUSLY that didn't sit to well with the germans (and rightly so) and they protested the contract. Now, finally, german beer will be sold at the stadiums in addition to Budweiser. |
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