Japanese brewer Suntory Ltd grabbed the No. 3 spot in domestic shipments from rival Sapporo Holdings Ltd last month, according to an industry source, in a surprising turn of events following Sapporo's price hike, Reuters reported May 20.

The industry source also said that Suntory likely ranked third for the year through to April, and that if it holds onto this position for the first half it would be the first time it has done so using the current set of official records that began in 1992.

While the fight for top spot in the world's sixth-largest beer-consuming country has long been fierce, with Kirin Holdings Co and Asahi Breweries Ltd each controlling about 38 percent of the market, the No.3 spot has until recently not been so hotly contested.

But Suntory has been gaining share, helped by the popularity of its upmarket "Premium Malt's" and "Kin Mugi" brand of no-malt beer, in addition to the impact of Sapporo's price hike.

At the end of 2007, Suntory's share of the market stood at 11.0 percent against 12.5 percent for Sapporo. Suntory closed the gap by gaining 12.8 percent share in the January-March period during while Sapporo held 13.3 percent.

Suntory then managed to boost shipments ...More Info

Karan Bilimoria, prominent Indian-origin entrepreneur, is considering the sale of his multi-million pound Cobra Beer empire that he began from the back of his car in 1989, PTI reported May 19.

According to marketing documents prepared for financial institutions, the company’s sale is expected within the next three years. Cobra Beer has grown into a major company that has a significant market share in the UK as well as in India, where in the last 18 months it has struck deals with nine regional brewers and acquired a majority stake in another. The documents identify Companies SABMiller, InBev, Molson Coors, Carlsberg and Anheuser-Busch as “obvious buyers” with others such as Heineken, Kirin and Indian-owned Companies also “possible buyers”.

The Sunday Telegraph on Sunday reported that Cobra is trying to secure 13 million pounds from investors to help fund its rapid expansion in India.

Bilimoria said, “It’s a very likely option that someone comes along and makes us an offer we cannot refuse. I am not saying I am definitely going to sell the company. What I am saying is that definitely within three years we will have to have a major event.” He pointed SABMiller’s acquisition of Foster’s Indian operations in 2006 as ...More Info

No international brand has made it into the exclusive club of those whose annual sales exceed 50 million euros, while domestic brands such as Timisoreana, Bergenbier, Golden Brau, Ursus and Burger have all overshot this mark, by as much as tens of millions of euros in some cases, Ziarul Financiar reported May 20.

Whether part of multinationals' portfolios or developed by the biggest independent brewers with several hundred years' experience, or much younger, domestic brands are the leaders on a market that has topped 1.2bn euros.

Whereas ten years ago these brands sold several hundred thousand hectolitres or even less, in late 2007 more than five domestic beer brands generated sales worth above one million hectolitres, which could translate into at least 50m euros.

Timisoreana, the best-selling beer brand in Romania, in 2002 generated less than 10% of Ursus Breweries sales, while in late 2007 the same brand accounted for almost half of volumes sold by the domestic branch of SABMiller group. With a sales volume of 2.2 million hectolitres in 2007, Timisoreana could derive sales worth 130-150m euros, according to ZF estimates. In terms of volume, Timisoreana sales surged by 43% in the last fiscal year, and by 51% in terms of ...More Info

Lion Nathan Limited (Lion Nathan) has posted a strong interim result, lifting operating net profit after tax (NPAT) by 7.0% to $167.7 million for the six months to 31 March 2008, according to company’s press release, May 20.

Net sales revenue again grew strongly, rising 7.9% to $1.12 billion as increased investment in marketing and innovation initiatives continued to encourage drinkers to shift to higher equity national and premium brands. The robust revenue improvement was also assisted by the earlier timing of Easter in 2008 and the inclusion of almost three months of Boag’s trading following its acquisition in January 2008.

Lion Nathan CEO Rob Murray said: “We have continued to produce strong earnings and cash flow while increasing investment in our brands, our breweries and our people to achieve higher sustainable long term NPAT growth”.

“The strong revenue growth reflects successful brand investment and new product development in our core businesses,” Mr Murray continued.

The result was achieved despite higher input costs driven by higher commodity and fuel prices and also poor weather conditions, especially in the first quarter in New South Wales and Queensland.

After the impact of one-time items (OTI) and individually significant items (ISI), reported NPAT increased 1.6% to $164.6 million. The ...More Info

Kompania Piwowarska (KP), a prominent brewery in Poland, has turned out to be one of the most rapidly growing companies belonging to the SABMiller group in terms of sales volume, according to the recently announced results of SABMiller for the 2007/2008 financial year (which ended on 31 March 2008), Polishmarket reported May 20.

During the period in question, Kompania Piwowarska succeeded in increasing its sales in Poland by 12%, to 14.5m hl of beer. The company developed rapidly, and the only SAB Miller companies which surpassed it in terms of growth rates were the subsidiaries in China (25%), Russia (14%), Botswana (20%) and Romania (28%).

It is estimated that the concern’s share of the Polish brewery market in terms of sales volume is 41%. The best results in terms of sales volume were reported by KP brands such as: Zubr (a 17% increase), Tyskie (8.5%) and Lech (12%).

SABMiller-owned Hungarian Dreher Breweries plans to make Ft 3 billion (€12.2 million) in investments this year, the business daily Világgazdaság reported, BBJ MTI-Econews reported May 20.

Dreher President-CEO Hector Gorosabel told Világgazdaság that the 2008 investments will be used primarily to improve logistics, though significant sums have also been earmarked for updating the company's IT system and introduce new packaging.

Gorosabel said that the company's investments over recent year's, including a large-scale investment in 2007 to expand the brewery's production capacity and efficiency, have been necessary to counteract a dramatic rise the cost of energy and basic beer ingredients.

Gorosabel added that, in addition to increasing production efficiency, the price of beer should be raised on the Hungarian market in order for the industry to remain profitable.

The Dreher president-CEO told Világgazdaság that a significant rise in excise taxes in 2005 and 2006 also represented a major blow to the profitability of Hungary's beer market.

Gorosabel said that consumption of Dreher products increased by 4% in the company's business year ended in March, in excess of the market, while the company's profitability increased by approximately 15% during the year.

Central budget expenditures were Ft 49 billion over the target in April, mainly because of bigger-than-expected spending ...More Info

As very few new malting capacities will become operational during this year, malt supplies will remain tight, analysts have recently reported. This is showing nowhere better than in southeast and Far East Asia, where China has exported 186,000 tons of malt in 2007, but may come close to shipments of 500,000 tons this year.

This is a very unusual success for a newcomer in international markets and can only be explained by a lack of offers from other continents and, of course, by an attractive price policy. China continues to expand its malting industry rapidly. EU and Australian industries will have larger volumes to offer at the earliest in 2010.

This year the Ukrainian barley yield would total 8.979 million tonnes, according to the estimates of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, AgriMarket reported May 16.

The Ministry's experts consider, that taking into account the carry-over stocks, the total grain offer in 2008/09 season would be at the level of 46 mln tonnes. It is supposed that 7.2 mln tonnes of grain would be used for food consumption, 14.3 mln tonnes- used as forage.

Agriculture Canada predicts a barley crop of 10.4 Mill. tons vs. almost 11 Mill. last year. The U.S. expects an unchanged or slightly larger acreage than last year’s 1.6 Mill. HA planted acres, according to the analysts.

Cold weather and dryness hamper barley seeding in the Western States north and south of the U.S./Canadian border.

Rising demand for barley from the leading beer Companies like SABMiller, United Breweries and Barmalt India has pushed up its prices by 20 per cent in the last five months, Financial Express reported May 16.

Prices of barley, a major animal feed crop and also used for malting, rose to Rs 1,200 per quintal from Rs 900 per quintal during January-May period.

"An increased demand from the top domestic malt Companies like SABMiller, United Breweries and Barmalt India is driving the price rally both in the spot as well as futures market," Jaipur-based trader Abhishek Aggarwal said.

Mandi prices in Jaipur, a major trading centre, has increased by Rs 100-1,100 per quintal in the last one month, while in the futures market they have surged by 20 per cent to Rs 1,209 per quintal in the last five months, he said.

At 13.40 hours, barley prices hit the upper circuit of 2 per cent at NCDEX counter, leading prices to rally sharply in the futures market.

Karvy Comtrade analyst Amand Rajalaxmi said: "The commodity has been very bullish since January. Prices are driven purely on demand".

According to trade sources, demand is estimated to be about 13 lakh tons in the country, while production in the ...More Info

According to the report of Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture, department for hops, the total acreage of hops in the Czech Republic is 5345 ha for the year 2008, which is only a very slight change from the last year acreage of 5389 ha, Hops Growers Union of Czech Republic published May 20. The major variety is still SAAZ fine aroma hops with 88,8 % of the total acreage.

Compare to the previous year there was an increase of the variety Premiant and variety Sladek and a slight decrease of the Saaz variety, mainly in the Saaz and Auscha hop growing regions. The positive news is that compare to the previous years there was more new plantings of the Saaz variety and we foresee that this trend will continue. There was even an increase of the acreage of the Saaz variety in the Tirschitz hop growing region.

W. Fred Ramirez and Jan Maciejowski

Abstract
J. Inst. Brew. 113(3), 325–333, 2007. A new tool was developed to solve a wide range of optimal beer fermentation problems. Using a mathematical model of beer fermentation, the direct dynamic optimization technique of sequential quadratic programming was investigated for determining the optimal cooling policy to maximize ethanol production for a fixed final time, including effects that optimize flavor. The new tool is very efficient for determining optimal cooling strategies. New control strategies were found that increase ethanol production while decreasing the deleterious effects of fusel alcohols and keeping the acetaldehyde concentrations at moderate levels. Model parameter sensitivity was investigated and it was shown that the system could be regulated successfully around optimal temperature profiles. Key words: Dynamic optimization, fermentation, mathematical modeling, optimal flavor. ... Load full article, 9 pages, 1153 Kb, PDF file