Baltic Beverages Holding AB (BBH) is to invest in a new brewery in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The move into Uzbekistan is in line with BBH’s strategy of entering into emerging markets, the company released June 08.

Uzbekistan has a population of 27 million, a growing economy and increasing levels of beer consumption (annual consumption ca 10 litres per capita). The domestic beer market has developed positively over the past couple of years and BBH believes that it has the potential to grow strongly in the future.

The brewery will be operational by the spring of 2007, and will have an initial capacity of 1 million hectolitres per annum, with the ability to increase production subject to demand. BBH will team up with a local partner in Uzbekistan, Sarbast Plus, and will hold a share of 75.1%. The total investment is EUR 50 million.

Baltic Beverages Holding AB (BBH) is a 50:50 owned joint venture between Carlsberg A/S and Scottish & Newcastle plc. BBH operates 18 breweries in six countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia where it is the market leader with a 35% market share.

The stage has been set for another foreign beer battle in Southeast Asia. This time around, Laos is the battlefield of choice for Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) - partly owned by Heineken - as they plan to mount a serious challenge to the Danish beer giant Carlsberg, ScandAsia announced June 08.

APB, which already own 26 Asian breweries, have announced that they plan to build a brand new brewery in Laos. This specific expansion move is part of APB's ambitions to become the leading brewery in the entire Asia Pacific region. Their most famous brand is the beer "Tiger", which is sold in more than 60 countries.

With this newly-announced competition, Carlsberg will soon find out if their strong dominance on Laos' foreign beer market is strong enough to resist such an attack. The Danish brewery group owns 50 per cent of the shares in Lao Brewery Company, while the national government owns the other half. The overall beer consumption in Laos makes up about 15 liters per person each year. In Denmark, the number is 90 liters per person.

The Malting Barley Committee has held its Spring 2006 meeting to discuss the progress of new varieties within the testing system. The outcome was the removal of approval for brewing use for Fanfare, Chalice and Decanter, the promotion of Flagon and NFC Tipple to Full Approval for brewing use, the promotion of Oxbridge to Full Approval for distilling use and Westminster to Provisional Approval 2 for brewing use and the promotion of Appaloosa to Provisional Approval 1 for distilling use.

Appaloosa - Spring variety successfully completing micromalting trials from crop 2005 is listed at Provisional Approval 1 for distilling use. Commercial scale malting and distilling trials will be undertaken from crop 2006.

Commercial scale malting and brewing trials have been performed on Westminster from crop 2005, but insufficient brewing data is available at this time to promote beyond Provisional Approval 2.