Pooled result

By: Chris Brook-Carter - 8 October 2003 12:33

Well if the German beer industry needed a fillip of any sort it certainly got it with this year's Munich beer festival. Various numbers started to come in as the event drew to a close on Sunday, but the figure that conjures up the most colourful image of the event is that visitors drank the equivalent of six Olympic-sized swimming pools during the two-weeks, which is apparently close to the annual event's record, organisers said.

About 6.3m people crowded into the beer tents during the festival, about 400,000 more than in the last two years, and drank 6.1 million litres of beer, an increase of 7%. This is a number beaten only in 2000, when a record 6,5 million litres were drunk, was more consumed.

According to reports demand was so spectacular in the first week of the festival, due to warm and dry weather, that some taps briefly ran out of beer.