Beer ‘superhighway’ for England fans at the Euros

Engineers have made sure that thirsty England fans will have adequate beer at the stadium of the country’s opening game of the Euro 2024 football championships.

The stadium in Gelsenkirchen, located in North Rhine-Westphalia, was opened in 2001 and has a number of technological features, including a retractable roof.

But, crucially for beer drinkers, it also doesn’t have the usual system of keg lines found in other stadiums. Instead it has a “beer superhighway” which delivers beer straight from the cellar to taps.

The Veltins Arena, which is the home of football team FC Schalke O4, has five kilometres of pipeline connecting to the supplying brewery, with the pump only working one way, pushing the beer into the stadium.

But, in the (unlikely) event of all of the beer not being served at the game or other occasion, there is the potential to pump out the beer, and transport it back to Veltins.

Storage

According to reports, the arena can hold 52,000 litres of beer or 91,507 pints at the same time within four storage containers – two with a 16,000 litre or 28,100 pints capacity, one with 12,000 or 21,000 pints and one with 8,000 or 14,000 pints.

The football club’s website says that the pipeline was “specially developed” for the arena, and it supplies the kiosks, the business club and all catering areas with fresh Veltins beer.

The booze comes directly from four cooling centres in the arena’s “catacombs”, before it “travels from the central pipeline via docking points to the taps and finally into the cups of the thirsty guests”.

It added that to ensure it comes out of the tap “perfectly chilled even at the most remote kiosk”, the pipeline was |surrounded by state-of-the-art insulation materials” as well as being cleaned and maintained regularly.

Scots

The news comes as German brewers were calling on Scottish football fans to consume millions of steins of lager during the Euro 2024 championship this summer.

It follows a decline in the overall volume of beer sales of 4.5% last year, which was part of an overall downward trend.

Figures from the Federal Statistical Office revealed German-based breweries and distributors sold about 8.4 billion litres (2.2 billion gallons) of beer last year — although the figure didn’t include non-alcoholic beer and beer imported from outside the European Union.

It has also been announced that pubs will be allowed to serve alcohol later if England or Scotland reach the semi-finals.

The first game of the football tournament, between Group A teams Germany and Scotland, is due to take place on 14 June, while England’s is on 16 June against Serbia.