Australians, who abandoned mixed spirits after the Federal Government's new tax last year, appear to be switching some of their consumption to beer, The Age communicated on January, 16.

A report by stockbroker Citi on beverage trends, based on consumption data from ACNielsen, shows beer sales started to turn around in May — a month after the tax in the ready-to-drink category was increased by 69 per cent.

The upturn in beer consumption in Australia is modest, running at a 0.5 per cent gain in volume by the end of last year — suggesting consumption has stopped shrinking, rather than started growing.

The quarterly report on beverage trends by Citi analysts Andy Bowley and Craig Woolford argues the upturn in beer drinking seems to have benefited Foster's Group most, clawing back 1.8 percentage points of market share from under 49 per cent to more than 50 per cent since May.

Citi's work was also slightly hampered by limited availability of Lion Nathan and Coca-Cola Amatil data, due to the former being in the middle of trying to take over the latter.

"Foster's (beer market) share gains have coincided with the change in management adding support to new CEO Ian Johnston's focus on marketing and innovation," ...More Info

ABB Grain announced the opening of its national No.2 malting barley pool on January, 16.

ABB’s pooled grain business unit manager Anthony Fitzgerald said this second pool offered another grain marketing alternative for growers to consider.

The estimated return for the premium varieties Baudin, Gairdner and Buloke will be AU$210-AU$220/tonne FOB with Flagship at AU$215-AU$225/t.

The traditional varieties of Schooner, Sloop, Fitzroy, and Grimmett, have an estimated return of AU$200-210/t FOB.

Segregations such as malt 2, malt 3, and no retention will be available, the company announced.

ABB offers three pool payment alternatives for its barley (malt and feed) pools. The traditional harvest payment, for barley, is 60 per cent of the FOB estimate less 100 per cent of estimated costs.

The other alternatives are quarterly distributions, which will have deducted 100% of costs incurred to the time of each distribution, and a single payment alternative paid at pool finalisation (less costs incurred during the life of the pool).

ABB closed its No.1 malting pool on December 31 last year.

Final figures for last year’s barley harvest were published by the Scottish Government's chief statistician on January, 14, Scotsman reported on the same day.

The production of barley, Scotland's most important crop, rose by 12.9 per cent or 214,000 tonnes to 1.9 million tonnes.

Commodity values have increased, but are still well below 12 months ago. The odds must be that there will be a reduction in the area of crops planted in the spring, with high fertiliser prices making the growing of barley on more marginal land economically doubtful, experts comment.

Arja Laitila, Erja Kotaviita, Petri Peltola, Silja Home and Annika Wilhelmson

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 113(1), 9–20, 2007 The present study was carried out to investigate the impacts of bacterial and fungal communities on grain germination and on the malting properties of good-quality two-row barley. In order to suppress the growth of bacterial and/or fungal communities, various antibiotics were added to the first steeping water of barley. This study was also designed to explore the dynamics of the bacterial community in the malting process after antimicrobial treatments by polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE). The diverse microbial community played an active role in the malting ecosystem. Even previously undescribed bacterial species were found in the malting ecosystem. Suppression of the bacterial community mainly consisting of Gram-negative bacteria was advantageous with respect to grain germination and wort separation. In addition, more extract was obtained after antibacterial treatments. The fungal community significantly contributed to the production of microbial beta- glucanases and xylanases, and was also involved in proteolysis. An improved understanding of the complex microbial community and its role in malting enables a more controlled process management and the production of high quality malt with tailored properties. Key words: Bacteria, barley, fungi, malt quality, malting, PCRDGGE. Load full article, 12 pages, 4150 Kb, PDF file