Design bottles vs. standard bottles

How do they end up at these other breweries, I understand the process up to the point of the bottles/crates disappearing down a hole in the store, but then what happens?

 

You're right about Lausitzer Porter. Wow.

 

“why don't the big breweries invest those millions in tasteful beers instead of fancy bottles?” Oh boy, that reminds me of the discussion about the new Budweiser bow-tie can:http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/budweiser-introducing-bowtie-shaped-cans.83331/

Cheers!

 

Actually, the Mehrwegsystem, "multi-use system" is one reason why German brewers can offer their beers at retail at prices much lower than in the USA per bottle. If a brewery only has to sort out bottles and send just a few on their merry way to another bottle sorter, then it saves them money in buying NEW bottles and other costs from that. However, if, as they say here in the ARD report, Fernsehbiere are only trying to differentiate themselves by marketing/packaging rather than by quality or taste, it's really simply a 1) a ploy to remove smaller competitors from the market by driving up their cost, which for a business mostly run on very thin margins and competition based roughly on price, is deadly; and 2) a relatively short-term & "cheap" investment instead of investing in using better quality ingredients or longer lager times (even 1 week extra lagering makes a huge difference to their bottom line). This move to individual packaging is to woo the fickle, younger market whose not brand loyal yet. This is also another case of short-term thinking, IMO. Actually, I believe it's a phase the German beer industry must go through as part of their learning curve. In fact, by killing off the middle size independent brewers who brew boring, Einheitsbiere, or (standardized beers) beer anyway is maybe not a bad thing. That development wouldn't hurt the smaller, craft brewers of Bayern or elsewhere, and allow them more room to expand their marketshare.

 

And the funny thing is, that there is a huge industry buying those "wrong" bottle from one brewery and selling them to the belonging brewery. The same is done with crates, which also might end up somewhere out of the distribution-range of a brewery...

 

Ah yes, the ever-endearing very-German Mehrwegsystem. An excellent concept which is now suffering more than it ever has due to mentioned marketing efforts to revive ugly packaging (let's face it - you can only put so much lipstick on a massively scratched 0.5 liter pig). Some mineral water people are still using the same case (gasp!) in exciting hues of light green and shit brown which makes things easier, but even in that industry Individualkasten are becoming more and more the norm.

Having worked at a distributor that moved about 80K-100K cases per day, I can tell you that with the increasing availability of almost all brands from Garmish to Flensburg, the growing wages and gas prices, with these changes the entire system must now be so costly and is surely no where near the original concept it once was. Throw in the increase costs of storage and bottle and case washing (water/electricity/spent water) and it probably makes more financial sense to simply put all glass bottles into the glass recycling system (mentioned in this piece). A reality most Germans don't want to accept by losing their dear and green "tradition" of reusing bottles.

 

It is my understanding that the last US brewery to use returnable bottles was Straub’s in St. Marys, PA. They stopped using them recently (a year or so ago).

From my readings it sounds like the costs associated with reusing bottles: transportation costs for returning bottles, energy and resource costs for washing the bottles, etc. just got too high for the US breweries. Maybe this is now going to happen in Germany?

Cheers!

 

I believe that it has simply transformed into something else than the original plan. 25 years ago you couldn't find a weissbier north of Frankfurt and certainly nobody drank Beck's in Munich. In addition, those who live in Germany can sing a tune about the ever-increasing costs of Benzin/petrol, water, electricity and gas.

 

I know that Brooklyn bottles have a deposit when you buy them at Globus here in K-town. So if you pay a deposit when you buy them, they should have to give it back to you when you bring it back. I am sure they are just hoping you won't bring it back so they get your deposit.

 

Bottles like that are brought back to the supplier/importer and destroyed/recycled. This is (to my knowledge) also what is happening to the Corona bottles mentioned in the OP.

 

That's the Braufactum Import I reckon?
Braufactum adds a deposit, but at 8 cent it's pretty low, and only stores who sell Braufactum take them back - you've got to ask the cashier though! The deposit terminals don't take them back.
Sounds silly and unnecessary, doesn't it?

Cheers!

 

Sounds like they are hoping people just say screw it.

 

Lucky you!
The last time I returned some of those bottles I tried the machine, didn't work, staff told me to ask the cashier, the cashier told me to try the machines in their Getränkemarkt (The bottles are sold in the main supermarket), those didn't take them either. The cashier in the Getränkemarkt finally took them, for 8 cents a bottle...

 

This was an awesome and very forensic look at this topic. I have been seeing the marketing trend here steer away from old time quality to newer fancier marketing techniques and it is simply because of a younger more disenchanted crowd of younger consumers. True there is still a market for classic tastes in Germany and there always will be, but as the economy demands more of its consumers and unemployment continues to stay at current levels many here in Germany will continue to accept mediocrity as the standard.

 

Germans have already accepted mediocrity as their beer standard, more or less with Fernsehbiere. Just like they have in all mass produced products sold in supermarkets. The masses don't want more, and that's the case in almost every country. That's not the problem. The problem is that they the. Turn around and claim rather loudly that German beer is the best in the world and are astounded when I tell them no, it's only wonderfully bland and mediocre.

 

You must be very popular.