German beer giants accused of price-fixing

TheLocal.de ^ | 23 Mar 13 10:37 CET | DAPD/The Local/jlb

[Olog-hai]

Competition regulators are investigating more than a dozen large German breweries suspected of illegally fixing prices on popular beers such as Jever, Becks, Warsteiner and Erdinger, it emerged over the weekend.

German breweries could face hundreds of millions in fines if found guilty of illegal price-fixing, in what is said to be the biggest-ever cartel investigation of the industry, wrote Focus magazine on Friday.

A probe by the Federal Cartel Office into the German beer giants, which together account for half of the German beer industry market share, is already in its final stages, a spokesman said on Friday. …

[Vendome]

Guess they know where to find cabbage!

Hah!

I slay myself...another day...

[The Cajun]

Leave Becks alone!!!
It's the only beer I drink!!!

[Does so]

Focus magazine?

Sounds like a good name for a Conservative publication.

;)

[niteowl77]

They can fix their prices but can't fix their distribution system enough to get me some non-skunked Jever once in a while? Ach! German efficiency, my arsch.

[hoagy62]

I had a German friend who turned me on to Jever Pils while I was over there. Best darn beer I’ve ever had. Never saw it on this side of the pond. Been 27 years since I had a glass of that ambrosia.

[niteowl77]

I used to be able to get Jever sporadically across the river (over in Illinois), but it was usually a bit skunked; I haven't been able to buy it for the last year and a half.

Perhaps gouging the natives has proven more lucrative than exporting the product.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Have you tried Pilsner Urquel ?

[niteowl77]

I'll add that my favorite pilsner after Jever is Radeburger, and Radeburger is - for now - easily had and seems reasonably fresh. The brew niteowl77 and myself most agree on is Weihanstephaner Original Premium, and if we could only have one "stone on hand to take care of both birds," that would likely be it.

Why my local imported beer pusher can get Radeburger but not Jever (both are controlled by the Oetker group) has puzzled me, but perhaps I'm the only guy in the try-state area with enough ostfreislandische DNA to handle the dryness/hop bitterness, and therefore the only one who was buying it.

Mr. niteowl77

[Moltke]

Just bought a few cases of Jever at 10.99. That’s about 50 cents per half liter bottle. How much cheaper do they think it should be? I don’t feel cheated.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Germans are obsessed with beer purity and regulation, with terrible fines for violating the law, or shorting customers by over-foaming the beer, for example.

I remember one guy, convicted of shorting beer at Oktoberfest, got something like a 1m DM fine.

I would not be surprised if a lot of beer company executives ended up in prison over this.