At the beginning of the week an article in the BILD newspaper gave the impression that it was a hopeless case for German breweries: The destruction of „BILLIONS of beer bottles“ was threatening, and even the beer crates would have to be shredded. With quotations of worried federation heads the BILD confirmed alarmed beer sommeliers and CSU party bigwigs: The German beer bottle is threatened with nothing less than a miserable death in the smelter – and every last one of them. As if that were not enough, the classic German beer crate is also facing extinction.