Photo: Jesöff
Drinkers of the world unite!
Jesöff isn’t like other beers. It wants to change the world. Just imagine eight scruffy, lefty Berlin students wanting to reinvent a bright new anticapitalist future in which “profits and decision-making are shared between everyone”. A world in which cheap beers, like every working class hero’s favourite Sterni, wouldn’t be owned by big corporations like Dr Oetker. How “punk” can a beer be when owned by a company with a shady history and one of the richest families in Germany?
Jesöff was founded in November 2020 by a group of shareholders as the “radical alternative” to corporate Sternburg. The export beer is bought ready-brewed and bottled at Vereinsbrauerei Greiz in Thuringia and rebranded with Jesöff’s local Red Star label (more of a red comet) designed by shareholders for free. Jesöff is sold in local outlets including Robin Hood stores, online and Spätis across the city for an RRP of €1 or less.
The worker-shareholders will never receive dividends, instead profit is only used to buy the beers and pay non-volunteers such as the delivery people. Any leftover money is funnelled into transformative social projects advertised on the back of each bottle, like Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen’s campaign to expropriate property from large real-estate companies.
Cheers to the beer-soaked revolution!