Word: german
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Trouble Brewing Less fizz in German beer...
...West Germans remain champion makers and drinkers of beer. Their 1,490 breweries, large and small, turn out 6,000 varieties of the beverage that they extol as "liquid bread" and that is still prescribed by some of their physicians as the best remedy for tension and insomnia. Now, however, the beermakers themselves are losing sleep. Having grown steadily for 30 years, the German thirst for lager is receding. Last year the average amount consumed by each of the nation's 61 million men, women and children was "only" 38 gallons. While that would be an astonishing level...
Beer consumption is off for several reasons, including the sobering effect of tough laws aimed at curbing drunken driving, as well as the slowdown in the German economy that has forced 500,000 beer-loving, "guest workers" from Turkey and other countries to return home. Germans are also increasingly preoccupied with physical fitness, and the full belly that was once regarded as a sign of a healthy, jovial temperament is now seen as a sign of excess...
...long complacent beer industry and its 75,000 employees have been traumatic Over the past two years, breweries have been closing at a rate of one a week, and forecasts are that eventually only 800 will remain open. Content in the past to let their beer sell itself, some German brewers have now begun to advertise. Duisburg-based König-Brauerei, for example, has a campaign that uses such luminaries as Actress Maria Schell and Moneyman Hermann Abs, former board chairman of the Deutsche Bank, who are, the ads note, "loyal to the king...
Beer is one industry in which Germans have long prized small size. In contrast to the U.S., where the beer business is increasingly being taken over by a few large firms, led by Anheuser-Busch and Miller, the German industry is made up of many small breweries, some of which serve only a few Wirtshäuser (pubs) in their area. The largest German firm, Dortmunder Union-Schultheiss, accounts for only 10% of the country's production...