Danish microbreweries under pressure

After years of explosive growth, Danish microbreweries are feeling the effects of the financial crisis as customers insist on paying less for beer.

When the craze for special beers was at its height, enthusiasts were happy to pay 40 to 50 kroner for a bottle but those prices have now tumbled.

A number of the smaller breweries have gone to the wall as customers go for cheaper beers bucking a trend that has been prevalent since the start of the decade.

In 2000 for instance there were just 12 microbreweries in the country while today there are 120 breweries selling specialist beers.

The president of the Brewery Association, Niels Hald, said he believed the number of microbreweries would stabilise at around 120 even though more would disappear as competition heats up.

However, microbreweries still represent just a small part of the total beer industry in Denmark. They currently enjoy about 3.5 percent of the market compared with 0.5 percent in 2003, while during the same period foreign beers have increased their share from 1.2 percent to 3.5 percent.

Based on the following sources:
http://www.cphpost.dk