POWDERED beer is created by German firm – and it could slash the cost of a pint!

A German brewery is set to release the world’s first ‘complete’ beer in powdered form.

Neuzeller Klosterbräu in eastern Germany, which has been brewing for nearly 500 years, said it will put the powder on sale this year, The Times reports. 

The product could cut the weight of shipments by 90 per cent because there will be no need to carry it in heavy bottles or in liquid form, with the potential for cheaper delivery having a knock-on effect on the price of pints.

Stefan Fritsche, the brewery’s managing director, said Neuzeller had developed the powder over the last two years with government funding. 

The ‘dryest beer’, as it has been called, differs from other powdered beers released over the last few years as it is carbonated and contains alcohol.

Pictured: Neuzeller Klosterbräu brewery and its ‘Kloster-Malz’ and ‘Schwarzer Abt’ (black abbot) beer

‘It’s the world’s first complete beer in powdered form and it could change the world,’ Fritsche told The Times. 

‘Add water and you’ll get a beer with the complete beer taste including alcohol and carbon dioxide and a head of foam. In principle we can produce any beer in the world using the method — dark beer, light beer, India pale ale, whatever.’

An alcohol-free version of the light beer was presented by the company last week. 

It said it was looking for partners to help market versions with and without alcohol.

A reporter for the regional newspaper Märkische Oderzeitung said: ‘It tastes a bit malty like beer, only the alcohol is missing.’

Fritsche said inflation, the energy crisis and glass shortages, partly caused by the stopping of deliveries from Russia and Ukraine during the conflict, created strong arguments for powdered beer.

‘It makes no sense to import glass bottles, fill them with German water and then send the beer to Africa or China or wherever,’ he said.

Neuzeller, based in Brandenburg, previously invented an anti-aging beer that was also released in the United States, Poland and South Korea.

Pictured: Neuzeller Klosterbräu brewery. Stefan Fritsche, the brewery’s managing director, said Neuzeller had developed the powder over the last two years with government funding

The company said the beer can be used as a tonic for bathing. 

Neuzeller won a legal battle to add sugar syrup to its Schwarzer Abt (Black Abbot) speciality beer, running against the nation’s beer purity law that dates back to 1516 and states that beer must contain only water, malt, hops and yeast.

Fritsche said powdered beer would only suit brewers that supplied markets far away and that Germany’s mostly small and medium-sized brewers would continue to conventionally brew and bottle beer for their local consumers.

He added: ‘We also know that the classic Pils drinkers and all craft beer enthusiasts, especially in Germany, will initially be sceptical about our product.’

With the product, the company is mainly targeting overseas firms who would not require brewing knowledge but could turn the powder into beer for their end consumers.