Around seven million people from all around the world take in the world's largest beer festival, Oktoberfest in Munich Germany annually. Together, they consume on average one litre of beer each.

However, over the years, beer drinking habits, in general, have been changing, particularly in the country renowned worldwide for its production and consumption of beer.

While the majority of people CGTN spoke to at Oktoberfest had enjoyed a festival beer, some believed they drank less than their parents generation, while others had made changes themselves, such as 72 year old, Hans Meyers.

"People don't drink as much alcohol at the regulars' table anymore, so I drink non-alcoholic drinks and more water."

Meanwhile 32 year old German Paul Handler told CGTN that he felt that his generation "drinks a little bit less than the older generations”, adding that him and his friends “think a bit more consciously about the consequences".

Some 50 kilometres north of Oktoberfest is the world's oldest continually producing brewery, Weihenstephan Brewery. They have witnessed evolving drinking trends since monks began brewing beer here in 1040.

Anton Hirschfeld who has been working at the brewery since 2018 calls it a "paradigm change", saying "it's probably 20% less than it was 20/30 years ago".

Official statistics in Germany show that beer sales fell 2% from 2023, which was followed by a further 6.3% drop in the first half of this year.

Much of the reason for this is two fold. For one, inflation has made beer production more expensive and two, more health conscious drinkers are choosing alcohol free options.

This has led to a growth in non-alcoholic beers, which has grown to make up 11% of Weihenstephan Brewery's total volume, says Hirschfeld.

"We see a huge increase in alcohol free options, but we're not at that point where the alcohol free beers make up for the loss of the alcoholic beers."

The overall trend has led a slow decrease in production at most German breweries, pushing the country out of top spot as Europe's largest beer producer, a title its had held since 2013.

One way Weihenstephan Brewery has been able to adjust to these evolving trends is to focus on their export markets, such as Asia, where beer drinking is increasing.

"70% of our production is shipped abroad to more than 60 different countries, so for us, we still have growing markets to play in", smiles Hirschfeld.

He is also not worried about the German market…just yet.

"The decline is there. You can't really ignore it. But we are still a beer drinking country. They are still going to the beer gardens, having a good time. Habits have changed, but the culture hasn't."