Plzensky Prazdroj, the number one brewer on the Czech market, raised direct exports by more than 4 percent year-on-year to 881,000 hectolitres in 2008, CTK cited on March, 23 data obtained from Czech breweries as well as the latest estimates of the Czech Beer and Malt Association.

Brewing group Heineken Ceska republika raised exports by 13 percent year-on-year to 858,653 hectolitres last year.

The group, comprising Czech brewers Starobrno, Kralovsky pivovar Krusovice and a group of breweries Drinks Union, exports its beer mainly to Germany, Russia and Ukraine.

Pivovary Staropramen, the second largest Czech brewing group, exported around 690,000 hectolitres of beer in 2008, a growth of around 0.5 percent against the previous year.

"Exports of the Staropramen brand rose by 3 percent and its production under licence increased by 19 percent," the company said. Apart from Staropramen, the firm's product portfolio also comprises the Branik, Velvet, Ostravar and Kelt brands.

Budejovicky Budvar was the only exception among the largest domestic brewers as its sales abroad dropped by 1 percent to 581,522 hectolitres, but still were the second highest in the firm's existence.

Budejovicky Budvar exports its output to more than 50 countries. It sells most of its beer in the states of the European Union ...More Info

Belgium’s Duvel Moortgat brewery reported on March, 20 a 15.5% increase in consolidated turnover for 2008, as compared to the financial year 2007.

According to a company press release, its consolidated turnover amounted to EUR101 mln during the 2008 financial year. Its operating income rose by 17% to EUR105.8 mln.

Over the reporting period, Duvel’s EBIT increased by 8.3% to EUR19 mln. Of the total 2008 marketing cost, 56% was spent in the first six months and 44% in the last six months, the brewer said.

The EBIT margin decreased from 20% in 2007 to 18.8%, but increased compared to 30 June 2008, when the margin amounted to 17.4%.

The results of operating activities after net finance costs grew by 5.1% to EUR18.1 million. According to Duvel, its financial results in 2008 were negatively influenced mainly by the results of conversions of receivables, debts and foreign currency credits at the final rate per 31/12/2008 (€560,000). The higher debt costs and lower interest profits from working capital provided a negative effect to the amount of EUR150,000.

The consolidated profit increased by 3% to EUR12.2 million. The gross operating cash flow (EBITDA) rose by 17.9% to EUR30.9 million.

2008 has been an excellent year for Duvel Moortgat, despite ...More Info

A European Union court on March, 25 upheld a ruling denying Anheuser-Busch InBev the right to register the Budweiser name as a trade mark in the EU, Reuters communicated on the same day.

U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch, bought by Belgian counterpart InBev last year, applied for an EU trade mark in 1996 for the name "Budweiser" for its "beer, ale, porter, malted alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages".

The application was opposed by Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar, which makes beer marketed in the European Union as Budweiser Budvar, or Czechvar in North America.

Budvar's opposition was upheld by the European trade mark office, OHIM. After a failed appeal at OHIM, Anheuser-Busch took the case to the Luxembourg-based EU Court of First Instance.

"The Court of First Instance upholds OHIM's decision not to register the word 'Budweiser' as a community trade mark, inter alia for beer, for the American brewer, Anheuser-Busch," the court, Europe's second-highest, said in a statement.

Shares in alcoholic beverages firms Foster's Group Ltd and Lion Nathan were lower in intraday trading on March, 25 as brokers said the recent failure by federal parliament to validate a tax increase on ready-to-drink beverages (RTDs) would hurt beer sales, The Sydney Morning Herald reported on the same day.

"Beer consumption is likely to flatten again as RTD spirits fall in price to reflect the return to the lower excise rate," Credit Suisse analyst Larry Gandler said in a research note.

Mr Gandler said Australian brewers had been enjoying "very pleasant growth" mostly as a result of the tax-induced shift from RTDs to beer.

He is tipping 3.3 per cent volume growth for Foster’s and 1.8 per cent for Lion Nathan this year, noting each 1 per cent fall in volume cuts Foster’s net profit by 1 per cent and by 1.6 per cent for Lion.

"Unfortunately, with the Australian Senate's failure to ratify the ready-to-drink spirits excise tax increase, we expect the halcyon days are to be short-lived," Mr Gandler said.

Mr Gandler said beer volumes grew by more than seven per cent in February compared to the prior corresponding period, and grew ten per cent by value, which was above forecasts.

Hot weather, ...More Info

Alcohol consumption in Ireland dropped dramatically last year because of the weak economy and cross-border sales in Northern Ireland, bringing average consumption levels in 2008 back to where they were a decade ago, The Associated Press cited an industry association on March, 24.

An estimated 1500 pubs have closed in the past six years, the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland said in a report.

Irish shoppers have flocked to the British territory of Northern Ireland during the past year to capitalise on the strength of the euro, buying not just alcohol but other goods as well, the chairman of the industry group, Kieran Tobin, said.

Beer volumes declined 5% last year. This year will be even worse if current trends continue, the chairman of the industry group believes.

Tobin called on the government to take the report into consideration when announcing the supplementary budget next week and to forgo any increase in alcohol taxes.

"The clear conclusion from this report is that all sectors of our industry manufacturers, distributors and retailers both in the on- and off-trade are under immense pressure and we call on the government not to add to this burden by considering any increases in alcohol taxes," Tobin said.

Latvia’s largest brewer Aldaris exported 385,000 litres of beer in 2008, Ilze Ulinska, head of Aldaris Export Department, was quoted as saying by DELFI on March, 24.

According to Ms Ulinska, Zelta beer accounted for 206,000 of the brewer’s total exports last year.

Latvian beer is most popular in Ireland and the UK, which account for a fourth of the company’s total export volume. Thus, 89,000 litres of Aldaris beer was sold in Ireland and about 24,000 litres – in the UK in 2008.

Besides, the company exported 49,000 litres of beer to the United States and about 40,000 litres to Canada.

Aldaris plans to increase its export volume and find new markets in the current year, it is reported.

Tanzania Breweries, a subsidiary of South African SABMiller, said revenue for the March year could rise by up to 11 percent on the previous year's 383 billion shillings ($290 million), Reuters reported on March, 23.

According to Managing Director Robin Goetzsche, the company also has plans to boost its production capacity by 600,000 hectolitres before November, by building a $55 million brewery.

"We should see good double-digit growth, around 10 to 11 percent in revenue growth, which is positive for us, bearing in mind the tough couple of sessions ahead of us in terms of world economy," he said.

TBL, majority-owned by SABMiller has beer production capacity of just over 3.4 million hectolitres, against sales of about 3.25 million hectolitres per year.

"We are building a new brewery which we will be commissioning in November in Mbeya. The brewery in the south is an investment of $55 million," Goetzsche said.

"The new plant will have an annual capacity of, to start with, 600,000 hectolitres."

Goetzsche said the Mbeya plant would easily be upgraded to double its capacity as needed.

The company is expanding to meet rising demand fuelled by a booming economy in recent years.

He said TBL was also add a new 48,000 bottles an hour bottling ...More Info

ABB Grain will pay the first quarterly distribution from its national pools at the end of March 2009, the Australian agribusiness announced on March, 25.

The payment will be distributed to all growers who selected the Quarterly Distribution payment alternative of ABB’s national wheat, barley and canola pools.

ABB’s pooled grain business unit manager Anthony Fitzgerald said ABB had had an active grain sales program since harvest and, as a result, its delivery program was well under way.

“Once receipts from sales and logistics costs are netted off, most pool participants will receive between 20-30% of the total net return in this first payment, however this will vary depending on the location growers delivered to,” Mr Fitzgerald said.

“A large percentage of the total pool costs, including storage and handling, fobbing and freight, will be deducted from this first payment, which is consistent with what we outlined at the start of the season.

“We indicated 100% of costs incurred would be deducted at the time of each distribution and, given we’ve had a front-ended program to date, a lot of the costs have already been incurred.”

“Given our grain marketing activity will be weighted to the front end of this year there is a ...More Info

S. E. Iyuke, E. M. Madigoe and R. Maponya

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 114(4), 300–305, 2008 To the consumer, beer should be an agreeable beverage of attractive colour, clarity, pleasing flavour and should carry no toxic substances. One of the major constituents of barley is phenolic acids and their direct effect on the quality of beer is still a mystery. The aim of the study therefore was to investigate the relationship between phenolic acids during mashing at different temperatures and the quality of the beer. The mash regime and liquor to malt ratios were optimised and the carbohydrates obtained were analysed at 3.5 L of water per kg of malt and a total mash time of 105 min. Carbohydrate and phenolic acid analyses were performed by HPLC coupled with a UV-vis detector. The three different malts used had a phenolic acid content of 33.25 μg/mL, 25.44 μg/mL and 19.98 μg/mL for malt A, B and C, respectively. The plot of 1/T versus Ln(t) gave a negative slope with activation energy (Ea) = 209 KJ/mol, rate constant (k) = 4.6 × 10��4 mg/L min, which are comparable to similar data reported in the literature. The kinetics studies showed that the optimised mashing temperature of 90°C was adequate to form 4-vinylguaiacol by thermal decarboxylation from the hydroxycinnamic acids. This study has shown that there is no direct correlation between phenolic acids and oxidative flavour stability of beer while the corresponding volatile phenols may affect beer flavour. Key words: Beer quality, HPLC, hydroxycinnamic acids, kinetics, volatile phenols, wort. Load full article, 6 pages, 12913 Kb, PDF file