It may have been a generational shift - I moved to Austria (similar culturally in that respect, I have since moved to Germany) in early 2005 and in my first job the "older" coworkers (to me at the time, probably in their 40s then so in their late 50s/early 60s today) would go to have beers after work every day, or almost every day.
In later jobs that didn't really happen & I think I caught the very end of that type of thing.
My coworker would have been working in Germany in the late 80s and early 90s, so this makes sense.
Is it possible that your coworker was making choice of going for beer every day till 7pm and other people did not made same choice?