It's 11pm in Berlin. You want a beer. EDEKA is closed. The corner kiosk with the neon light is open. The Holsten Pilsener in the fridge? €3.74. That morning, the same bottle was €0.87 at EDEKA two streets away. Same city. Same beer. Same night.
What the data shows
Across 360 beers sold through both supermarkets and kiosks in Germany, 4 in 5 cost at least 50% more at a kiosk. The median Späti tax is 79%.
| Store type | Median price | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Supermarket (EDEKA, REWE, tegut) | €1.64 | 2,411 |
| Kiosk / Spätkauf | €2.94 | 3,947 |
For the best-documented single product — Holsten Pilsener 500ml, 30 price records across named Berlin and Hamburg stores — the spread runs from €0.87 at EDEKA to €3.74 at Urban Kiosk and All-In Kiosk: 4.3x more expensive.
Augustiner Hell 500ml — the most widely stocked German beer in the data with 184 price records — tells the same story: supermarket median €1.67, Späti median €3.25, nearly 2x. At the outer edge of the kiosk market, the same bottle reaches €16.48 at Späti am Lausi — 13x the EDEKA floor price.
Beer median price — supermarket vs kiosk (€)
Source: Sivix, Germany, 360 beers tracked in both channel types
Why this happens
Kiosks compete on access, not price. They are open when supermarkets are not, positioned on the right corner, and sell single units to people who need one beer now. That convenience is the product — and it is priced accordingly.
There is also no competition at 2am. When EDEKA closes, the kiosk sets the market.
What it means for you
The Späti tax is real but it is graduated. Most kiosks charge 1.5–2x the supermarket price — a premium most city dwellers accept without thinking. The 4–13x outliers exist but are concentrated in specific late-night and tourist-area kiosks that treat a €1.64 beer as a €6+ experience.
If you are in Berlin at midnight and you want a cold Holsten, €3.74 is the market price. The data just puts a number on what you already knew.
Data source: 11,427 price records, Germany, via Wolt delivery network, single-week scrape. Prices reflect delivery menu pricing; in-store shelf prices differ but the relative spread between store types is consistent.