Kirin Brewery Co. estimates that its domestic beer sales in the January-June period climbed about 11% on year to 86 million cases, a company executive said July 03, Dow Jones Newswires released the same day.

Senji Miyake, president of Kirin's beer, wine and spirits division, told a group of reporters that the company expects its beer sales to have grown on year for the first time in seven years. Miyake traced the double-digit increase to the strength of its hit product, "Kirin Nodogoshi," a low-priced beer it introduced last year.

Nodogoshi is one of several competing products in a new category of beer that Japanese brewers created to get around tax rules. Dubbed "the third beer," Nodogoshi and other rival products take advantage of lower taxes on beer made from non-malt ingredients. The market for such beer in Japan has grown quickly and now makes up about 16% of the entire beer market.
But Miyake declined to comment if Kirin's market share exceeded that of archrival Asahi Breweries.

July 03, at 0407 GMT, Kirin shares were up 1.1% at Y1,818 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Polish Łomża Brewery (LB), belonging to bourse-listed Pepees, is on sale, the Warsaw Business Journal posted on July 3.

Carlsberg is offering at least zł.125 million for a 100% stake, depending on the results of audit that the company has been conducting in the brewery.

Danish Royal Unibrew is also interested and may announce a call for shares of Pepees. Should Royal Unibrew acquire Łomża Brewery in this way, they would control Strzelec, Brok and Łomża breweries and possess an almost 49% stake in Perła from Lublin.

Unibrew Poland refused to comment on the issue, but Royal Unibrew admits that acquisitions are included in its development plan.

Pepees also has declined to comment on the various reports and promised to inform investors when appropriate. The supervisory board and LB's largest shareholder, Pepees, are inclined to sell out.

Last week the Kosovo Trust Agency (KTA) concluded the procedure of purchasing “Peja Brewery”. The buyer, Ekrem Lluka, has paid the amount of EUR 11.1 million. It is now up to the purchaser to conduct the guaranteed investments and employ 600 people. According to a KTA press release, the buyer has agreed to purchase 5 thousand tons of barley per year from local farms, Economic Initiative for Kosova posted July 04.

“I am very satisfied that this privatization was successful. I would like to thank all parties involved, KTA and “Peja Brewery” for all their hard work and devotion to the negotiation of this important transaction. “Peja Brewery” is a well-known and respected entity and I believe that the transaction will enable development and be of great benefit to Kosovo’s economy,” stated the Head of UNMIK Pillar IV in the KTA press release, reported the papers.

According to Lajm, the third wave of privatization included the “Peja Brewery”, “Grand Hotel and “Iliria Hotel”, all of which underwent special spin off. However, KTA has not yet signed the contracts for the latter.

The warmer the weather the more the Scandinavian Malting Barley market gets frozen, H. Abildstrøm & Co ApS said in a report of July 04. In principal nothing fundamental has changed over the last 3 months: barley developed better than feared, malt prices only slowly improving but breweries reluctant to act, general uncertainty in the malt production circles. In result, buyers and sellers increased prices by around € 2.

The last week warm spell created good conditions for barley growers. What looked uneven and with a few yellow leaves developed above expectations in Denmark and south Sweden. In Finland the same weather boosted tillering and made the latest areas easy to drill. Thereafter temperatures became more human around 22-25 in daytime 11-14 night all over the areas and some showers spread minor amounts of rain in DK and south Sweden but a lot in mid Sweden. Then again warm and sunny period which commenced mid last week – thus Denmark, Sweden and the east of Finland would need some more rain within short.

The average barley yield in Bulgaria's northern region of Targovishte is rising. Cultivators recorded a harvest of 300 kilos per decare, which is about 60 kilos higher than in 2005. So far about 20% of the crops have been picked. A total of 53,000 decares have been sown in the region, Sofia News Agency informed July 04.