Breweries in the Czech Republic produced 19.81 million hectolitres of beer last year, 0.5 percent less than in record year 2007 and the second best result thus far, Association of Breweries and Malt Houses chairman Frantisek Samal was quoted as saying by CTK on March, 25.

Domestic beer consumption decreased last year but exports grew and were the highest ever.

Beer consumption on the domestic market fell by 1.3 percent to 16.1 million hectolitres. Exports grew by 3.2 percent to 3.71 million hectolitres.

"Economic problems of the world and domestic economies did not influence the total output of our breweries practically at all and the fall in domestic consumption is being offset by significant growths in exports," said the association's executive director Jan Vesely.

Plzensky Prazdroj was the biggest beer producer last year, trailed by Pivovary Staropramen, Heineken Ceska republika, Budejovicky Budvar and the PMS Prerov group.

The largest breweries produced 86.2 percent of domestic beer. Output of the remaining breweries fell by 0.7 percentage point to 13.8 percent.

Exports of Czech beer more than doubled in the years 2000 to 2008, jumping by 133 percent.

While in 2001, the breweries exported 10.4 percent of their production on average, last year it was already 18.7 percent.

The highest ...More Info

San Miguel Corp, Southeast Asia's biggest food and drinks group, said its net income more than doubled in 2008, thanks to higher beer sales and asset disposals, Reuters reported on March, 26.

Manila-based San Miguel is in the process of moving into power and heavy industry from a saturated food and beverages market.

The company gained 6.66 billion pesos from the listing of its brewery arm in the Philippine bourse. San Miguel makes nine out of 10 beers sold locally.

Its unit San Miguel Brewery, the country's largest beer producer by sales, saw net profit rise 25% to 10.04 billion peso from 8.02 billion pesos on a 4% increase in sales volume and an 11% increase in sales to 48.79 billion pesos.

San Miguel's international beer operations, which span China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam, posted operating income of $1.97 million compared with a loss of $4.35 million in 2007. Sales increased 24% year-to-year to $282.9 million.

"It's been a significant year in the continuing strategic evolution of San Miguel with our company entering the power, energy and telecommunications sectors," San Miguel President Ramon Ang said in a statement.

That evolution included the company agreeing to sell 43.3 percent of its flagship San Miguel Brewery ...More Info

Heineken has become the new leader of France’s beer market in terms of turnover dethroning Carlsberg’s Brasserie Kronenbourg, Le Figaro reported on March, 26.

“2008 was a historical year for Heineken France as we have become the market leader leaving behind our main rival Kronenbourg in terms of turnover,” Frans Eusman, head of Heineken France.

Heineken’s total turnover amounted to EUR1.69 bln last year. Beer sales grew 9.3% from 2007, reaching EUR914 mln. In 2008, Heineken became the best selling brand with 17.3% of the French beer market leaving Kronenbourg with a share of 16.8%. The latter nevertheless remains the number one beer brand in terms of volume.

As for France’s total beer consumption, it has fallen by 30% in the last 13 years. In 2008, the market decreased by 4.8% whereas the drop of beer sales in the cafes, bars, and restaurants reached 12%, it is reported.

“In a declining market, Kronenbourg suffered from the general trend whereas we managed to progress,” Patrick Villemin, Heineken France’s general secretary, said. “This is the result of our premiumization strategy,” he added.

The brewer has implemented a number of innovations which seem to have been the right move: the launch of 15cl mini bottles designed to ...More Info

Denmark-based brewer Royal Unibrew has agreed to sell its brewery located in the Polish town of Koszalin to local sector company Van Pur SA, ADP News reported on March, 27.

The sum of the deal has not been disclosed.

The sale is projected to boost Royal Unibrew's earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) and cash-flow for 2009.

After getting approval of the Polish antitrust watchdog, the facility - currently owned by Royal Unibrew Polska - and its staff will be relocated to Van Pur. The clearance is expected by the end of April or the beginning of May.

Heineken N.V. announced on March, 25 that it had successfully placed 5-year Euro Notes for a principal amount of EUR 1.0 billion with a coupon of 7 1/8%.

According to the Dutch brewer, these unrated Notes have been issued under the company’s European Medium Term Note Programme and will be listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. The proceeds of the offering will be used to partially refinance bank loans and for general corporate purposes. The Notes were placed by Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse and ING, Heineken said.

Namibia Breweries said revenue increased to N$823 million in the six-month period to 31 December 2008 compared to N$715 million during the same period in 2007, The Economist reported on March, 27.

The company attributed the increase in revenue to growth in sales volume and costs controls.

Profit attributable to ordinary shareholders grew to N$84 million, from N$78 million dollars the previous year.

Beer volumes on the Namibian market grew by 7% during the reporting period, the company said.

“Volumes produced and supplies to South Africa also faired well registering double digit growth for the six months,” the company said without giving figures.

Exports to other markets in Africa also grew with the Angolan market standing out, the company said.

“There were some challenges however, the most worthy of these was in Botswana where a 30% tax on alcoholic beverages in November is having a significant impact on the market,” the company said.

Namibia Breweries recently licensed the Windhoek Lager trademark to Diageo, which will allow Diageo to distribute the Windhoek Lager beer worldwide for the next 10 years.

The CWB released on March, 26 its March 2009 Pool Return Outlook (PRO) for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 crop years.

The March PRO for 2008-09 showed no changes in values from last month for malting barley (C$320 per tonne for two-row and C$300 per tonne of six-row malting barley). The value of feed barley dropped by C$3 to C$166 per tonne this month.

PRO Commentary 2008-09 crop year

Feed barley Global feed barley prices moved lower this week, the CWB posted on its website. Large supplies of barley, feed wheat and corn, combined with weakening livestock demand, have put pressure on feed grain prices. Uncertainty about available Argentine corn supplies has provided some support to the feed grain complex.

Designated barley Global malting barley prices weakened this month, as large supplies outweighed demand. However, at this stage in the marketing year, the pool is well sold, and the impact of market price declines on the old-crop PRO is moderate.

In the Board’s March 2009 Pool Return Outlook (PRO) for the 2009-10 crop year, malting barley has declined by C$8 from the February PRO, whereas feed barley was unchanged.

The March PRO is C$255 per tonne of two-row malting barley and C$235 per tonne of six-row malting barley.

PRO Commentary 2009-10 ...More Info

EU’s malting barley market is still blocked for the old crop, La Depeche communicated on March, 27.

The demand for the crop 2008 is inexistent though the stock is still high. The crop 2009 also sees very few buyers. The prices are already lower than those for the other cereals, traders report.

The US hop market has seen a major swing, with the amount of hops in storage surging to the highest level in five years following a shortage last year, Capital Press reported on March, 27.

"It's a market that moves," said Brad Clack, manager of the S.S. Steiner hop brokerage branch in Brooks, Oregon.

Hop stocks rose 24 percent in the past year, to about 82 million pounds, according to the most recent biannual report from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The increased supply can largely be attributed to strong production in 2008, which was spurred by a spike in hop prices, said Ann George, administrator of the Washington Hop Commission.

Depleted stocks prompted average U.S. hop prices to climb from about $2 per pound in 2006 to about $3 per pound in 2007 and $4 per pound in 2008, according to the Hop Growers of America.

"In 2006, we basically hit the wall. The surpluses were pretty much gone," George said.

Now, the industry is worried that price signal spurred too much planting in the U.S. and around the world, she said.

Total U.S. hop acreage jumped about 32 percent, to about 49,000 acres, between 2007 and 2008, according to the Hop Growers of ...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