MUNICH, Germany — Can you have a smashing time at Oktoberfest without getting smashed yourself? Increasingly, the answer appears to be “jawohl.” A global shift toward nonalcoholic drinks — driven by greater health consciousness from California to Cologne and beyond — has reached even the world’s biggest celebration of beer. Not long ago, ordering a nonalcoholic beer at Oktoberfest could draw puzzled looks.
But now Oktoberfest is a proving ground for one of the most profound changes sweeping the global drinks industry as more consumers cut alcohol from their lives. Brass bands pound out songs and pop anthems with thumping beats such as Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and Robbie Williams’ “Angels” as thousands of voices roar along. Waiters weave through packed aisles carrying foaming one-liter mugs, and strangers at long wooden tables quickly become friends.
Revelers lock arms and sing together, climbing onto benches to dance as entire sections of a tent seem to move as one. Few people lifting a stein here would guess that beer consumption is down worldwide. Celebrants from the U.S., where slugging back brews is also on the decline, are a sizable part of the spectacle.
About 285,000 attended last year, making the United States the festival’s largest source of overseas visitors. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a regular and was back this year, conducting a band and thousands of singing beer drinkers. This year’s Oktoberfest will end Sunday.
At the halfway point of the 16-day festival, sales of nonalcoholic beer were up 4.5% from a year earlier. Sales of the traditional Festbier brewed especially for Oktoberfest — which contains about 6% alcohol, meaning a one-liter mug packs about as much alcohol as three and a half 12-ounce American beers — slipped 1.4% even as attendance rose. Last year, nonalcoholic beer accounted for nearly 8% of reported beer volume, with more than half a million liters served.
The trend extends beyond the festival grounds. Germany’s annual per capita consumption of traditional beer has fallen about 40% since 1990 to 77 liters now — an alarming development for an industry whose origins reach back to the Middle Ages. In 2025, global beer consumption fell 0.7% to 1.896 billion hectoliters — about 50 billion gallons — according to the British Guild of Beer Writers.
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