Haus Cramer Group, owner of the Warsteiner brand, is taking one of the harshest restructuring steps in its recent history. The group will shut down Herforder Brauerei in the second half of 2026 and is looking for a buyer for Paderborner Brauerei, thereby axing about 30% of its brewing capacity. If no sale is achieved, the Paderborn site will also close at the end of 2026. In total, 98 employees in Herford and 113 in Paderborn are affected.
The decision marks a sharp break with earlier expansion signals. Only in early 2025, Herford had started up a new bottling line after investments of more than EUR 20 million. Now the equipment is to be dismantled and moved to Warstein, where the group says sufficient spare capacity is available. The beer brands Herforder and Paderborner will remain on the market, but production will be concentrated at the group’s main site in Warstein.
The background is the long decline of the German beer market and Warsteiner’s own shrinking volumes. According to inside Getränke, the core Warsteiner brand has been falling for almost 30 years. Herforder, once around 515,000 hl when acquired in 2007, is now said to be down to around 180,000 hl. In addition, Herford produces around 250,000 hl of Traugott Simon and other private-label volumes for Edeka Rhein-Ruhr.
The Paderborn site is technically in good condition and has capacity of around one million hl. However, its current business is built largely around the low-price Paderborner brand, which competes with Oettinger, plus smaller products such as Paderborner Gold, Weissenburg, Isenbeck, Pilger, Geselle auf der Walz, Liborius and Limo Cola-Mix. Total Paderborner volumes are reported at around 550,000 hl, which can also be absorbed in Warstein.
The restructuring also has a political and labor dimension. The Gewerkschaft Nahrung-Genuss-Gaststätten accuses management of breaking a site-security agreement that was supposed to protect Herford and Paderborn until the end of 2028. Employees had reportedly accepted concessions on wages, holiday pay and Christmas bonuses in return. Mohamed Boudih, NGG state chairman, said the company had broken its word.
The city of Paderborn is already preparing for the consequences. Stefan-Oliver Strate, mayor of Paderborn, called the news painful for the city as a brewing location, while Jürgen Janke, managing director of the municipal economic development agency, pointed to possible reuse of the brewery site and said first interest had already emerged.
Internally, the move is also part of a broader shift in Warsteiner’s leadership and strategy. After several failed turnaround attempts under managers including Martin Hötzel, Alessandra Cama, Christian Gieselmann and Helmut Hörz, the current leadership around Raphael Rauer, managing director marketing and sales, and Jens Hoffmann, managing director technology (inside.beer, 26.11.2024), prepared the consolidation together with Michael Römer, head of M&A, and restructuring adviser Bodo-Joachim Wendenburg. Hoffmann, however, will not oversee the Paderborn transfer: he has resigned and will become Managing Director Technology at Bitburger Brauerei effective 1 January 2027. Harald Stückle, responsible for the Bavarian sites Oberbräu-Holzkirchen, König-Ludwig-Fürstenfeldbruck and Kaltenberg, is to support the process.
The latest step has deep roots. In 2017, Warsteiner had already brought in Roland Berger to review the group’s structure (inside.beer, 07.09.2017). In 2018, the company’s “future program” already included job cuts and a review of Herforder Brauerei (inside.beer, 05.02.2018). Only in 2023, however, Warsteiner still announced major investments in Paderborn and Herford (inside.beer, 14.5.2023; inside.beer, 09.08.2023).
Despite the closures, Haus Cramer is not giving up on its core brand. Budgets for a relaunch of Warsteiner have reportedly been approved, and new communication is expected shortly. The question is whether the painful removal of excess capacity will be enough to give the group room for a real comeback.
