Heineken N.V. announced that it is to acquire the Rechitsa brewery, strengthening Heineken’s number two position in the fast growing Belarus market giving the company a production share of 24%, according to company’s press release, May 22.

Under the terms of the transaction, Heineken has agreed to invest US$ 9.9 million (EUR 6.4 million) in an increase in the share capital of Rechitsa, ultimately leading to a 51% share in the company. The transaction is to be financed from existing credit facilities and will be immediately earnings enhancing and value enhancing in 2010. The proposed acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals.

In 2007, Rechitsa sold 285,000 hectolitres, equating to a national production share of 8%. The brewery, has a technical capacity of 525,000 hectolitres, employs 588 staff and is located in the city of Rechitsa in South Eastern Belarus, 280 km from Minsk. The business also operates a maltery, with a capacity of 10,000 tons. The portfolio consists of the mainstream beer brand Rechitsa and its 6 sub brands, the economy brand Dneprovska and a newly launched premium brand, BergG, which has three variants.

Nico Nusmeier, Regional President Central and Eastern Europe, Heineken N.V. commented: “Following the acquisition of Syabar in December 2007, ...More Info

China Resources Enterprise, Limited (‘The Company’ or together with its subsidiaries, ‘The Group’) announced its unaudited quarterly financial and operational review for the three months ended 31 March 2008, in a press release, May 22. Profit attributable to the Company’s shareholders amounted to HK$639 million. Excluding the after-tax effect of revaluation of investment properties and major disposals, underlying net profit for the current quarter would have increased by 4% driven by the 45% growth of the core consumer-related businesses.

Sales volume of beer increased by 11% to 13 million hectolitres. The national brand, SNOW, expanded its sales volume further to 10.7 million hectolitres, up 30%, consolidating its position as the single largest beer brand on the mainland and one of the leading brands in the world. The first quarter of a year is typically a low season for the brewery business and there were initial losses incurred by the new breweries. The overall slightly higher gross margin and steady sales volume growth helped reduce net loss to HK$32 million from HK$35 million, paving solid platform for the imminent peak beer sale seasons. Earnings contribution of purified water operation surged by 333% to HK$13 million driven by a substantial sales volume ...More Info

Czech brewery Pivovary Staropramen more than doubled profit to Kc578.4m last year from Kc231.3m in 2006, and raised revenues from Kc3.56bn to Kc3.75bn, the company says in an invitation to its general meeting, according to CTK, May 22.

Beer sales excluding foreign licence production rose by 5.9 percent to a record 3.24 million hectolitres. Sales on the Czech market added 4.7 percent to 2.55 million hectolitres, while sales abroad increased to 1.54 million hectolitres of which 687,000 hectolitres was net exports and 849,000 hectolitres licence production.

Pivovary Staropramen is the second largest Czech brewery and the second largest Czech beer exporter. It covers roughly 15 percent of the domestic market and exports its Staropramen beer to 30 countries. The company is a unit of InBev, the largest beer producer in the world.

SAB Miller Romania sold 5 million hectolitres of beer in the financial year that ended 31 March, up by 28% y/y, thus securing the most substantial progress of all the European markets, Bursa reported May 16.

Revenues advanced 25%, whereas the market share gained 3.5% to a sound 25.4%. The group"s business in Europe delivered another excellent performance, with organic lager growth of 8%, and EBITA growth of 15% in organic constant currency and 30% on a reported basis. Strong volume growth in Poland, Romania and Russia was complemented by market share gains in several countries. Timisoreana spearheaded sales on the Romanian market following the introduction of a PET packaging. The volume progress reached 43%, whereas revenues gained 51% for Timisoreana. The Ursus Premium brand maintained its leadership in the premium segment, with 8% growth, and has increased penetration in upscale on-premise outlets. All brands benefited from better point of sale execution and a new distributor incentive scheme, with intensive display and tailored service packages in all channels. Current capacity expansions will bring overall capacity to 6.8 million hl. The overall Romanian market advanced 9% amid an increase in the average revenue per ...More Info

Thanh Hoa – Nghi Son Brewery Joint Stock Company on May 19 officially launched the operation of Nghi Son Brewery Plant in Nghi Son Economic Zone in Tinh Gia district, Thanh Hoa province, Nhan Dan Online reported May 20.

The new brewery plant has a capacity of 50 million litres a year. Total investment for the plant is put at VND 210 billion. The plant is equipped with modern equipment from Germany and Japan.

The plant’s products in the initial period are draught beer, PET beer and bottled beer.

Thanh Hoa - Nghi Son Brewery Joint Stock Company will increase investment to expand production and produce canned beer and other products of competitive advantages.

OJSC "Brewing Company "Baltika" increases export deliveries to Canada, according to the media, May 21.

Beer "Baltika N 3 Classical" will be delivered in two provinces of Canada: British Columbia and Albert which population makes more than 7mln persons.

"Baltika" delivers production to Canada since 2003. Earlier "Baltika N 3" was exported only to the province of Ontario. Today beer of this mark in glass bottles of 0.5l is presented in the largest network of alcoholic supermarkets of Canada - LCBO.

"Baltika" since 1996 is the leader of the Russian brewing market, owns 10 breweries and 3 malt enterprises in 9 regions of Russia. The basic shareholder is Baltic Beverages Holding AB (BBH) which owns 86.32 % in the authorized capital of "Baltika" and 91.48 % of voting shares. In 2006 "Baltika" united with companies "Vena", "Pikra" and "Yarpivo".

Australia will plant a record area of barley this year, ProFarmer Australia said, according to Bloomberg, May 21.

Barley plantings may gain 11 percent, Richard Koch, managing director of the Perth- based forecaster said.

Grain growers in Australia are planting bigger crops to benefit from higher prices and replenish incomes depleted by years of drought. An increase in output in Australia may ease a global food crisis that's spurred riots from Haiti to Egypt.

The nation may sow a record 4.8 million hectares of barley, up from the previous record of 4.6 million hectares in 2004-05, ProFarmer said.

Australian grain growers rely on rain at this time of the year to sow winter grain crops for harvest starting about October.

The malting barley market is in expectation this week with the operators assured by the good crop development both for winter and spring barley, La Depeche published May 22. The quotations were lower following the prices for other cereals.

Feed barley market was motionless this week. The operators have registered only several coverage operations. The prices decreased.

Coceral had forecast a barley crop of 59.5 million tonnes vs. 57.5 million tonnes in 2008 for the EU-27, of which 31.2 million tonnes (last year 32.0) spring barley, the analysts have recently reported.

Recent estimates of spring barley acreage and production in the more important producer countries have been collected from trade and industry, except for Finland, Poland and Spain, for whom we took the Coceral figures:

Czech Republic 1450 tonnes, Denmark 2800 tonnes, Finland 1972 tonnes, France 3000 tonnes, Germany 2400 tonnes, Poland 3328 tonnes, Spain 6988 tonnes, Sweden 1600 tonnes, U.K. 3000 tonnes.

A bad drought area is the Eastern Mediterranean and the Arab Peninsula. Barley crops are threatened in Turkey, Cyprus, Syria and Iraq, according to analysts.

Grazing is poor in Saudi Arabia. Import demand in this part of the world will be larger than usual.

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