page_title: Craft brewery and microbrewery
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Craft brewery and microbrewery / Craft brewing and micro-brewing in Europe / Germany
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: "Zoigl"-Biere von verschiedenen fränkischen und oberpfälzischen Brauereien
context_page_description: A craft brewery or microbrewery is a brewery that produces small amounts of beer, typically less than large breweries, and is often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as having an emphasis on enthusiasm, new flavours, and varied brewing techniques.
  The microbrewing movement began in both the United States and United Kingdom in the 1970s, although traditional artisanal brewing existed in Europe for centuries and subsequently spread to other countries. As the movement grew, and some breweries expanded their production and distribution, the more encompassing concept of craft brewing emerged. A brewpub is a pub that brews its own beer for sale on the premises.
context_section_description: Some microbreweries, such as those in Germany, have been brewing traditionally for hundreds of years. In Germany, there were 901 small breweries in 2010. The Federal Statistical Office defines a small brewery as a brewery with a production of less than 5,000 hectoliters (132,086 US gallons) beer p.a. Small breweries pay a reduced beer tax.
  The total market share of the small breweries is less than 1%. 638 of them have a production even less than 1,000 hl (26,417.2 US gal.) p.a. and can be considered as microbreweries in a narrow sense. The figures apply to commercial breweries only and do not include hobby brewing.
  About one third of the small breweries have a tradition going back up to 500 years, most of them in Franconia. About two thirds were founded in the last 25 years. The vast majority of small breweries operate in combination with a brewpub.
  Whereas in other countries, microbreweries and brewpubs have risen in reaction to the mass production and marketing of beer, in Germany, the traditional brewpub or Brauhaus remains a major source of beer. This is mainly true for the South of Germany, especially the state of Bavaria. Upper Franconia, a district in the Region Franconia in the north of Bavaria, has the highest density of breweries in the world. Upper Franconia has about one million inhabitants and about 200 breweries. Many of them are microbreweries or brewpubs.
caption: Zoigl beers from the communal brewhouses of Oberpfalz in Germany
exif: {"Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A630", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Paint Shop Pro Photo 12,01", "Image DateTime": "2009:11:06 19:01:10", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "550", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "24856", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/25", "EXIF FNumber": "279/100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:11:06 13:36:20", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FocalLength": "73/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2077", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1937", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "\u0001\u0001\u0001\u0001", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[3, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "408"}