Rapidly declining beer consumption is forcing breweries as far afield as Germany and Thailand to pivot to new products, or risk closure.
People in countries around the world are drinking less alcohol, a trend analysts attribute to increasingly health-conscious lifestyles as well as cost-of-living pressures.
In Germany, more than 3% of the country’s breweries have closed in the past year alone, while Thailand’s brewing giant ThaiBev, which owns the ubiquitous Chang brand, is investing heavily in dairy farms to win over non-drinkers across Southeast Asia. One place where beer sales are actually rising, by contrast, is the Indian state of Odisha: Consumers there say they prefer the drink to help deal with rising temperatures driven by climate change.
