Hanoi Beer-Alcohol-Beverages Corp., a Vietnamese brewer partly owned by Carlsberg A/S, said it expects profit to “slightly” increase this year and that its stock will start trading on the over-the-counter market in June, Bloomberg reported on May, 29.

The net income of Habeco, as the company is known, would rise to VND250 billion (US$14 million) from VND247 billion last year, chairman Le Ba Co said.

The revenue of the Hanoi-based brewer, Vietnam’s third-largest, is expected to climb to VND3.7 trillion from VND3.4 trillion last year, Co said. Habeco plans to set up a new brewery that will produce 100 million litres of beer a year in the northern province of Vinh Phuc in the fourth quarter.

The maker of “Hanoi Beer” held its first initial public offering in March last year. The government raised VND199 billion, compared with the VND1.74 trillion it expected to get, after a plunge in the stock market. The benchmark VN-Index, which lost 66 percent last year, has rallied 32 percent this year.

Carlsberg, the largest Danish brewer, holds around 16 percent of Habeco, Co said, with the Vietnamese government owning almost 82 percent.

Vietnam plans to start a new exchange, known locally as UPCoM or the regulated over-the-counter market, in ...More Info

Ukraine’s beer export increased by 30.4% in April as compared to the previous month, correspondent.net communicated on May, 28.

Total beer export volume amounted to 37.2 mln litres (USD10.89 mln in money terms).

In comparison with April 2008, however, the export volume dropped 4.5% or 1.7 mln litres.

In January – April this year Ukraine exported 6.9% less beer than in the same period of 2008. Total beer exports in the first four months of this year amounted to 114.6 mln litres (USD33.02 mln).

The lion’s share of Ukraine’s beer exports goes to Russia, Belarus, Moldova, and Georgia.

As it has been already reported, in March Ukrainian brewers sharply increased their output to 2.3 mln hl (+ 33.7% as compared to February).

Dutch brewing giant Heineken N.V. announced on May, 28 that it has acquired a further 55.6% of Class A1 Notes representing a face value of £111.2 million issued by Globe Pub Issuer plc (‘Globe’).

Heineken said it has also acquired 31.6% of Class B1 Notes issued by Globe, representing a face value of £18.0 million, and a 21.7% participation in the syndicated bank debt (being £50 million out of an aggregate of £230 million).

In addition, Heineken has now assumed the economic interest of the counterparty of Globe Pub Management Limited in a swap transaction. The swap was entered in 2006, when the floating interest rate in relation to the syndicated bank debt was swapped for a fixed interest rate.

These additional purchases follow Heineken’s initial acquisition of 30.1% of Class A1 Notes issued by Globe, representing a face value of £60.2 million, on 17 April 2009. Heineken therefore now owns a total of 85.7% of the Class A1 Notes.

Heineken has purchased the Notes and syndicated bank debt at a substantial discount to face value. As Heineken has consolidated the Globe group for accounting purposes as per 28 April 2008, the net debt of Globe is included in the consolidated balance ...More Info

Romania’s beer sales dropped by 12.3% in the first three months of this year from a year ago, Ziarul Financiar cited data from the National Statistics Institute (INS) on May, 28.

The 3.1 mln hl of beer sold in the country in January – March make the worst first quarter in ten years, analysts comment.

The nation’s largest brewers and research companies maintain, though, that the market fell by less than 10% in the first three months of this year, with their estimates ranging between a 4 and 7% decline.

Their explanation is that INS data include only sales by producers to wholesalers and store chains of modern retail and therefore do not cover the real beer consumption, assessed by market research firms.

"Brewers were much more cautious about deliveries in the first months of this year so as to reduce stocks on the market and lessen the impact in the final price of products," explained Constantin Bratu, general manager of Romania's Brewers Association.

He added that during out-of-season periods it takes as long as a month between the production moment and that of consumption, so that larger beer stocks are generated.

Total beer sales in the first quarter reached 3.1 million hectolitres, from over ...More Info

Chen Shufa, chairman of Fujian New Hua Du Supercenter Co., Ltd. has enough capital to buy a stake in Tsingtao Brewery Co. from Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev, SinoCast Daily Business Beat reported on May, 28.

Mr. Chen cashed in about 1.3 billion via selling A shares of Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. recently.

In addition to self-owned capital, he has had enough capital to take a 7.01 percent stake in top Tsingtao Brewery from AB InBev, Tang Jun, CEO of New Hua Du, said in an interview.

Mr. Chen inked a contract to acquire a 7.01 percent stake in Tsingtao Brewery from AB InBev for USD 235 million, or CNY 1.6 billion, on May 7, 2009.

The CNY 1.6 billion was scheduled to remit AB InBev's account on May 27, but for problems regarding to procedures, the timetable had been postponed to early next month, added Tang.

After the deal, Chen Shufa will become the third biggest shareholder of the Chinese beer maker.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation (FAS) has instituted legal proceedings against the maltster Russkiy Solod ex parte Baltika Breweries, RBC reported on May, 28.

Russkiy Solod (Russian Malt) is accused of setting in 2008 a monopoly price on the malt it produced for Russia’s largest brewer.

Russkiy Solod owns three malthouses in Russia with a total annual capacity of 330 thousand tonnes of malt.

Previously, at the end of December 2008, Russkiy Solod, the largest maltster in Russia, has filed a lawsuit with the Moscow’s Arbitrary Court demanding almost 1.6 bln roubles from Baltika Breweries in payment of the malt produced for the brewer.

Baltika, in its turn, brought a suit against the maltster early last month requesting the invalidation of a RUB4 bln contract. The brewer claimed that the delivery volume had been imposed on it by the respondent and was more than twice as much as Baltika’s malt needs. Besides, the price of malt on Russia’s market at the moment when the contract was signed was much lower than the price set by Russkyi Solod, which abused in this way its dominating market position.

As of May, 13, barley export licenses issued by the EU amounted to 3.3 mln tonnes, ONIGC cited FranceAgriMer earlier this month.

In total, the amount of barley licensed for export since the beginning of the 2008/09 campaign is lower than that of the previous year (3.6 mln tonnes of barley) but higher than in 2007 (3.1 mln tonnes).

Last month, EU’s authorities licensed the export of 150,000 tonnes of barley. Barley intervention offers have surpassed 800,000 tonnes, it is reported.

The CWB released on May, 28 its latest monthly Pool Return Outlooks (PRO) for the 2008-09 and the 2009-10 crop years.

PRO Commentary 2008-09 crop year

Despite the rise in international feed barley prices, malting barley prices continued to be pressured by large supplies in several key malt barley producing countries. Abundant old-crop stocks have held their quality and are being carried forward, putting pressure on the new-crop price structure. These large supplies are allowing buyers to remain very selective. Currency volatility remains an important factor in the world malt barley price structure with recent strength in the Euro being positive for prices, while the strengthening of the Canadian dollar has adversely impacted prices in Canadian-dollar terms. At this stage in the marketing year, the old-crop pool sales are nearly complete and the impact of market price declines on the old-crop PRO is moderate.

Malting barley values declined by C$3 from the March PRO to C$317 for two-row and C$297 for six-row malting barley.

Global feed barley prices moved higher this past month, despite large supplies of barley, feed wheat and corn. Planting delays in the eastern corn belt are causing concerns about U.S. corn production, supporting international feed prices. Drought conditions in Spain, ...More Info

Despite the demand for malting barley on the EU markets, the offer is practically nonexistent, La Depeche reported on May, 29.

The sellers are taking their time in expecting a more precise estimate of the 2009 barley crop, industry observers explain. As a result, the market is closed, though the initial crop prospects are promising.

Feed barley enjoys stable demand due to competitive prices as compared to other grains, it is reported.

Incoming reports on the giant hail storm that devastated parts of the German hop crop on Monday, May 26 keep coming in but the general opinion now is that the situation is not as bad as originally indicated, examiner.com posted on May, 28.

Earlier this week, one member from the Netherlands reported, “Staff of Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephaner [where the German brewing school resides], who live throughout the area, have all reported the complete destruction of hop fields in the region.” Other reports indicated that the damage was local in some areas and effected about only 25% of the region.

Approximately 1,800 hectares of hops plantings in the Southern Hallertau region must be considered a complete loss, one source stated.

Another source is reporting: In Hallertau, the worlds' largest hop growing region, 4,000 hectare (10,000 acres) has been hit. This represents 25% of hop fields in Hallertau. 2,500 acres is completely destroyed; 3,750 acres is reported to have been severely hit and another 3,750 acres has been lightly damaged.

Likewise the Southern part of the Tettnang region was heavily affected by the hailstorm, which passed the area a few hours before it reached the Hallertau. First estimates show that 350 hectares were badly ...More Info

Ch. Schönberger

Introduction
Bitter is, or should be, a descriptive term for beers. What makes the beer bitter in the first place is the use of hops. The range of bitter units in beers used to be between 20 and 50 IBU (International Bitterness Units). Nowadays there is a very clear trend towards mild beers with bitter units between 10 –25 and sometimes even lower. Originally used as a preservative in beer, newest findings show us what hop-derived substances offer in regard to health benefits. So there is hope that a new triumphant success of hops might go along with a new increase of bitterness in beer. Bitterness is a topic which is very important for all brewers and being a question of taste it can be discussed to everyone’s taste. This article is to give a review on the knowledge about bitterness in beer and the challenges in sensory and analytical evaluation of bitterness. The bitter taste reception is different from the reception of the other four taste qualities, which are sour, sweet, salty and umami, because evolution told us to be alert to bitter foods and rightly so since it can be equated with dietary danger. Rancid fats, hydrolysed proteins, plant-derived alkaloids, and toxins generally have an unpleasant bitter taste. Also microbial fermentation often results in bitter tasting compounds (1). But bitter flavours also contribute to the palatability and digestibility of food and beverages. Beer is not the only consumer good with the tendency of decreasing bitterness. Responding to taste-driven consumer demand of less bitter food, the food industry generally tries to remove bitter compounds like phenolic compounds, flavonoids, isoflavones, terpenes, and tannins from foods destined for human consumption. Because of such efforts, current food supply is less bitter than it might otherwise be (2,3). Load full article, 15 pages, 286 Kb, PDF file