InBev SA said it was still on track to close its $52 bln of U.S. brewer Anheuser Busch Cos. Inc. by the end of the year, despite the crisis racking the credit markets, Dow Jones communicated on September, 19.

"InBev has fully committed financing in place with signed credit facilities from a group of leading financial institutions," said InBev spokeswoman Marianne Amssoms.

"We are on track to close the transaction by the end of the year," she added.

InBev is raising $45 billion in debt to buy Anheuser for $70 a share, in one of the largest all-cash corporate mergers in history. Yet Anheuser's shares closed on September, 18, at $65.71, an indication that some investors have doubts about the merger getting done amid worries about the viability of numerous financial institutions.

According to analysts, the spread may also be an indication that "merger arbitrageurs" - firms that bet on the odds of a merger being completed - have been selling their positions to raise cash.

InBev and its consortium of lending banks - which includes Banco Santander, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Fortis, ING Bank, JP Morgan, Mizuho Corporate Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland - ...More Info

Despite the high inflation and lower living standards consequently, beer, which is considered a luxury item, is still selling well, and bringing high profit growth rates to breweries, Vietnam Net communicated on September, 19.

The Hanoi Beer Company (Habeco) said that its industrial production value in the first six months of the year was VND1.711 bln, an increase of 23.5% over the same period of last year, while total pre-tax profit was VND247.2 bln. The company hopes to gain VND2,824.9 bln in turnover in 2008 and sell 250 mln litres, it was reported.

Saigon Beer Company, meanwhile, has also confirmed satisfactory business in 2008 with the estimated industrial production growth rate of 38% over last year. Its total turnover is expected to reach VND10.159 bln, an increase of 46% over 2007, with 933 mln litres sold.

Other brewers including Vietnam Brewery Company, Ha Tay Brewery Factory, Halida and Huda have also reported satisfactory growth rates.

According to the Vietnam Association of Beer, Alcohol and Soft Drinks, the brewery industry still got the high growth rate of 14% in the first half of the year, despite great difficulties.

Though material prices have increased by 30-70%, and beer prices have risen by 10-20%, Vietnamese people still consumed ...More Info

Bavaria NV, the Netherlands' second- biggest beer brewer, challenged a group of German brewers that want it to stop using the name Bavaria on the beverage in a dispute at the European Union's highest court, Bloomberg reported on September, 18.

At issue is the validity of EU rules that gave the Bavarian brewers rights for 'Bayerisches Bier', German for Bavarian beer, and whether they can block Bavaria's trademarks. The debate on the scope of these so-called geographical indications has pitted the EU against countries such as the U.S., Australia and Argentina in global trade talks.

"The Bavaria trademarks were valid, are valid and were registered before" the EU rights were given to the Bavarian brewers, Massimo Sterpi, a lawyer for Bavaria, told a five-judge panel of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg on September, 18. The EU rules "can't be used as a weapon to attack earlier trademarks."

As it is reported, the Bavarian brewers' association got an EU protection for foods from specific regions for the name 'Bayerisches Bier' in 2001. It then sued Bavaria NV in Germany, Spain and Italy, trying to annul the company's trademark rights or force it to stop using the Bavaria name on its brew.

The ...More Info

ZAO Moscow Brewing Company invested $200 mln in the construction of a brewery in Mitishchi, Moscow region, the company announced in an official press release on September, 22.

The brewery’s planned annual production capacity is 2.4 mln hl at the initial stage, with a gradual expansion of production to 6 mln hl per year. This makes the Mitishchi facility the biggest brewing site in Europe.

Sberbank Rossii, a Russia-based commercial bank, and investment company Detroit Investments are the financial partners of the project. The first brands to be produced by the facility are the German Oettinger (under license) and a new Russian brand Mospivo.

Already in operation, the new enterprise aims at getting 6% of the country’s market. Experts argue that in Russia of which the beer market has been divided between transnational players long ago such a claim verges on insanity: a very powerful and very expensive advertising support is required for people to drink such an amount of an unknown beer. “We’ll manage!” Detroit Investments asserts.

SABMiller will move to co-ordinate key global input procurement to buy more cheaply, SAB managing director Tony van Kranlingen was quoted as saying by Business Report on September, 18.

Next month Van Kralingen will take up an appointment in London as the director of human resources and supply chain for the parent of SAB. He will be replaced in South Africa by Norman Adami, who previously ran SABMiller Americas.

Van Kralingen said there were "lots of opportunities" to leverage buying power to achieve better value and avoid duplication in 60 countries.

Grant Swanepoel, a beverages analyst at Barnard Jacobs Mellet, agreed that SABMiller had opportunities to gain greater global buying efficiencies by better co-ordinating this process.

SABMiller's operating countries were now run fairly autonomously, with the result that one country could be buying more cheaply than another, Swanepoel said.

Van Kralingen said the shift could include the establishment of a specialised buying office, but there was no guarantee that moves to co-ordinate better would go this far.

This was because centralised buying would be complex from a transport perspective, given the company's global spread.

According to Diageo Ireland’s preliminary results for the year ended June 30, sales volumes in the on-trade declined two per cent over the financial year, the Barkeeper published on September, 17.

However, the company itself increased net sales by two percent during this time.

The Irish operation also reported a 1.3 per cent growth in volumes with share gains made in both the on- and off-trades, “driving an overall share gain for Diageo Ireland in the beer category”.

The continuing shift to the off-trade, which grew four per cent in volume (compared to 12 per cent the previous year to June 30th 2007), shows a slowing down in the rate of expansion, just as the rate of decline in the on-trade has begun to show signs of slowing down too, reported Diageo Ireland’s Director of Corporate Affairs Michael Patten.

“We believe the volume ratio between on- to off-trade now stands at 45:55, a significant change since 2001 when 70 per cent of all alcohol was purchased in the pub,” said Michael Patten.

“The island of Ireland market for the last 12 months has been characterised by low growth to the end of June on a full-year basis, delivering 1.3 per cent volume growth and 3.6 ...More Info

A larger barley crop expected by Canada this year will bring little changes to the nation’s malt barley export program during the 2008/09 season as compared to 2007/08, Resource News International cited industry sources on September, 22.

Scattered frosts and untimely rains during the growing season seem to have caused less of the crop to grade as malt, experts report.

"Normally 20 per cent of Western Canada's barley crop will grade as malt," said Mike Jubinville, an analyst with the farmer advisory service ProFarmer Canada in Winnipeg. "However, how much will actually be accepted as malt by end-users or the Canadian Wheat Board for its export program, is very much an unknown factor at this time."

Bruce Burnett, director of the weather and crop surveillance department for the Canadian Wheat Board, said the selection rates this year were going to suffer a bit because of weather problems experienced by barley during the growing season.

"Barley particularly suffered from the heavy rains that came through some key growing regions a week and a half ago," Burnett said. The rains were expected to have caused sprouting, bleaching and splitting damage to the barley.

"The later-harvested barley is not expected to produce a large amount of product ...More Info

According to the revised estimates by Strategie Grains, total barley production of the EU nations will amount to 64.3 mln tonnes in 2008/2009, APK-Inform communicated on September, 19.

The EU countries’ 2007/2008 barley production was 57.5 mln tonnes.

So far, Hungary was the latest of the EU nations to report a 45% increase of barley production compared to 2007 results, Agroperspectiva cited data provided by Hungary’s Central Statistical Office on September, 22.

This year’s barley crop constituted 1.48 mln tonnes, with the average yield rising by 40.8% to 4.45 t/ha.

As the 2008 hop harvest in the Czech Republic is approaching its end, analysts report that the nation’s hop industry is back to normal after two low years.

Although the final official results of the harvest will not be available until the end of November, experts from the Hop Growers Union of the Czech Republic estimate that due to the good climatic conditions, especially compared to the last two years, the crop results will be around long term average. Thanks to good results in the smaller production areas (Tirschitz and Auscha), it can be even talked about a better average, it is reported.

The main SAAZ hop variety is already completely harvested. Its average yields in the main hop growing region are up just above 1 t/ha and also the average alpha content is better than in the last two years.

The harvest of the other Czech varieties should be finished this week. Experts from the Hop Growers Union expect an average crop of these varieties with a good alpha content. The individual yields of varieties are however very variable.

At this moment the Union estimates that the total Czech hop production in 2008 will be around 6,500 tonnes (with approx. 5,300 tonnes of ...More Info

Dominik Szwajgier, Adam Wasko, Josef Zapp and Zdzislaw Targonski

Abstract

J. Inst. Brew. 113(2), 185–195, 2007 Ferulic acid (4-hydroxy-3-methoxycinnamic acid), predominantly in ester form in arabinoxylan chains, is the main phenolic acid present in barley and malt. Only about 1% of the total ferulic acid in barley is present in the free form. A number of previous works concerned the contents of free and esterified ferulic acid in a broad range of popular beers, but there is little information about the possible composition of feruloylated oligosaccharides in beers. The aim of this preliminary work was to purify the feruloylated oligosaccharides from lager beers (by the means of preparative chromatography) followed by composition elucidation using TLC, HPLC with RI or UV detection and 1H-NMR. Indeed, the qualitative analyses of isolated fractions from beer revealed that the fractions contained ferulic acid in the ester form (as proven after mild alkaline hydrolysis). It was also shown that molecular masses of oligosaccharides present in the purified beer fractions were similar to the masses of arabinose and xylooligosaccharides in the range of xylose to xylohexaose. Although a number of purified beer samples contained oligosaccharides of higher molecular masses, these were not further characterized. Taking under consideration the presented results, it can be concluded that beer can be a good source of feruloylated oligosaccharides, significant in the context of human health benefits. Key words: Antioxidant activity, beer, ferulic acid, feruloylated oligosaccharide, free radical. Load full article, 11 pages, 2836 Kb, PDF file