Japanese brewer Kirin would be interested in buying a stake in the beer business of Philippines' San Miguel, Reuters informed on July 24.

That day, San Miguel Corporation surprised investors with plans for a new corporate shake-up that may see it sell more of its flagship beer operations.

San Miguel's A shares, restricted to local investors, have dropped 34 percent and its B stock, open to all, have slid 42 percent since the new strategy was unveiled in May 2007.

Asked if Kirin would be interested in buying shares in San Miguel Brewery, Yoshinori Isozaki, who represents Kirin on the board of San Miguel Brewery's parent group, said: "If there is an opportunity."

Kirin already owns 20 percent of San Miguel.

"The restructuring may require the divestment of part of our interest in our major subsidiaries through either an IPO (initial public offering) or follow-on offering and strategic partnerships with existing partners and other industry leaders," chairman Eduardo Cojuangco told a shareholders' meeting in Manila. "In the event that we do pursue such a partnership, San Miguel would retain controlling interest of at least 51 percent."

Cojuangco said San Miguel was preparing for a secondary offering of its food business and its newly listed beer unit, ...More Info

Improved pricing and the successful launch of Bud Light Lime helped American Brewer Anheuser-Busch post better than expected profits, Forbes.com announced on July 23.

Just days after it agreed to be acquired by Belgian brewer InBev and the board increased its regular quarterly dividend, Anheuser-Busch reported increased sales and profits in the second quarter, ended June 30.

Investors traded Anheuser-Busch shares up 0.2%, or 13 cents, to $67.38, gearing up for the positive report.

As a result of price increases and greater sales of higher-priced beers, U.S. beer segment sales rose 4.5%, due to a 0.5% increase in volume and a 3.2% increase in revenue per barrel in the latest quarter. The company said it plans to raise prices again on most of its domestic portfolio in September and October.

Data shows that beer shipments to wholesalers increased 0.5% in the quarter, whereas sales from wholesalers to retailers, a better indicator of consumer demand, rose 0.4%, despite the timing of the Fourth of July holiday that adversely impacted 2007 comparable results.

The brewer of Budweiser and Michelob beers also raised its quarterly dividend 12.1% to 37 cents from the previous dividend of 33 cents per share. The dividend will be payable on Sept. 9 ...More Info

Guangzhou Zhujiang Brewery Co, InBev’s Chinese joint venture, has obtained regulatory approval for an initial public offering in China to raise about 1 billion yuan ($147 million), Reuters quoted on July 25 a source with direct knowledge of the situation.

The brewery is allowed to sell up to 70 million shares, it is stated in the preliminary approval of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. The timing and location of the listing have not been determined.

Zhujiang Brewery, China's fifth-biggest beer maker 28.6 percent owned by InBev, needs funds for expansion as it competes with bigger rivals such as CR Snow and Tsingtao in the world's biggest beer market by sales.

InBev, set to become the world's biggest beer maker after agreeing to buy Anheuser-Busch Cos Inc this month, competes with such major foreign players as SABMiller, Heineken, and Carlsberg, which have also moved into China.

As it was reported, Zhujiang will use the proceeds from its planned IPO to boost its annual production capacity by 25 percent to 2 million kilolitres, as part of an effort to double sales to more than 7 billion yuan by 2010 and raise market share to 7 percent from 4 percent. The company’s last year sales grew 10.5 ...More Info

Lion Nathan Ltd., Australia's second- biggest brewer, reaffirmed its annual profit forecast on rising sales of beers including XXXX Gold and Tooheys Extra Dry, Bloomberg’s report of July 24 says.

The company’s statement predicts earnings ranging from A$265 million ($255 million) to A$275 million in the 12 months ending September. Last year’s net income made A$282.1 million.

Chief Executive Officer Rob Murray has posted three straight years of little or no profit growth as he spent A$85 million boosting advertising, automating production and upgrading beer and wine distribution. The success of these activities is underpinned by the continued growth of XXXX Gold and Tooheys Extra Dry and by the introduction of new products, Hahn Super Dry and Barefoot Radler, both of which have resonated well with consumers.

The company said it's “confident'' 2009 earnings before items will be within analyst estimates of A$295 million to A$315 million. Costs in 2009 will rise as much as A$36 million as Lion Nathan pays more for barley, sugar and packaging.

According to Bloomberg, Lion Nathan shares rose 6 cents to close at A$8.90 in Sydney, paring this year's decline to 7.4 percent. Foster's Group Ltd., Australia's biggest beer and winemaker, has slumped 24 percent in 2008. ...More Info

SABMiller Plc, the world's third- largest brewer, will set up new Swedish and Austrian export units and expand similar French and Spanish divisions, Bloomberg informed on July 25 quoting the company’s e-mailed statement.

Due to the new subsidiaries, SABMiller will ship beer to almost every country in Europe and more than 100 nations around the world.

The company’s statement shows, its European exports increased 24 percent annually to more than 2.5 million hectoliters (2.1 million barrels) in the past five years and its export market in Europe increased 40 percent by volume in Europe in the past year.

The expansion of the export operations follows the significant success of the more established operations in Germany and the UK. The UK is now SABMiller’s most successful import market, marketing a larger portfolio of brands than any other market across Europe. In the year 2007-2008, Germany alone accounted for 300,000 hectolitres with 200,000 hcl being Pilsner Urquell.

The success of SABMiller’s European export strategy has been attributed to combining a popular international worthmore portfolio with intelligent investment in simple and effective marketing programmes appropriate to each region.

``We are consistently seeking to further establish and strengthen our position in key geographies throughout Europe, not only ...More Info

When U.S. drinkers are asked to name which alcoholic beverage they most often drink, the word “beer” sounds most often, Gallup’s publication of July 25 says. In recent years, wine had narrowed the gap, including pulling slightly ahead in 2005 (though not by a significant margin), but for the first time since 2002, beer enjoys a better-than-double-digit advantage over wine.

Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits poll was conducted July 10-13 of this year.

In the early 1990s, close to half of Americans said beer was their alcoholic drink of choice. Though beer did not repeat its record of that year, preferences for wine have fallen back from their 2005 high (39%) to 31%.

According to Gallup, the shift back to beer from wine in recent years has occurred mostly among Americans between the ages of 30 and 49. In combined data from the 2004 and 2005 Consumption surveys, drinkers between 30 and 49 were about as likely to prefer wine as beer. Now, drinkers in this age bracket have shifted back to beer, with an average of 47% in the combined 2007-2008 data saying they most often drink beer.

Younger adults have remained stable in their preferences, with 18- to 29-year-olds still showing a wide ...More Info

Prices for bottled beer grew by 45 % in the Czech Republic, which is not that impressing compared to the soaring draught beer – 160 %. Such are the results of the survey carried out by the Czech newspaper MF DNES, which compared beer prices dynamics starting from 1994, alconews.ru informed on July 22.

Such difference in prices is accounted for by intense competition between distribution networks trying to hold bottled beer prices at the lowest level. Thus, breweries get minimum profits from selling bottled beer, the Czech Walker informs.

“We make profit by selling special and seasoned beers,” Czech Beer Association’s CEO said.

However, despite growing prices, demand for beer does not fall in the Czech Republic.

According to official estimation, this year’s grain crop in France will make 53 mt, 19 % more than in 2007, La Dépêche said on July 25.

The country’s regions progress at different pace and crop capacity. Winter barley is practically reaped in France’s east and on the Atlantic seaboard, whereas Nord-Pas de Calais has just touched half of its fields earlier this week.

“Exceptional for the region”, the barley yields for the centre-South will be close to 70q/ha versus 50q/ha usually registered. The central part of the Atlantic yields 70-90 q/ha of six-row barley, 65 qx – winter and 65-70 of spring barley.

Though Central France’s productivity is satisfactory compared to past two years, still it is not what May data suggested. Heavy showers in June decreased by 0.5 per cent what promised to be 70q/ha average for all production regions.

The difference in soil characteristics and techniques used affects crop quality as well. In Bourgogne, where the results are poor, only 50 – 54 % of the barley yield is admissible for the beer industry. Country’s average high quality crop making usually 75 %, will not exceed 65 % this year. Spring barley calibration allows hoping for 75-85 %.

After two ...More Info

According to Barth-Haas Report, in crop year 2007 world alpha acid production increased by slightly more than 500 mt year on year. In 2007, as in the previous year, fine aroma hops suffered in terms of production volume due to unfavourable weather conditions. The prevailing climatic conditions worldwide had an even more unfavourable effect on the high alpha varietal group.

The data shows that together, Germany and the USA produced 74.3 % of total world alpha in crop year 2007 (previous year 73.3 %). Although the USA‘s share declined, it remained the largest alpha-producing nation, with 38 % (previous year 42.1 %). Germany improved from 31.1 % in the previous year to 36.3 % in 2007, thus taking second place, followed by China with 8.1 %, down from 9.5 % the year before.

Although some 617 mt more alpha acid was available after the 2007 harvest compared with 2006, the total volume produced came nowhere near to meeting demand. For the third year in succession less alpha was harvested than was required. This amounted to a shortfall of more than 2,800 tons in the last three years. Once again breweries’ stocks were used to make up for the shortfall, although they ...More Info

Pieter J. Verbelen, Sebastiaan Van Mulders, Daan Saison, Stijn Van Laere, Filip Delvaux1 and Freddy R. Delvaux

Abstract

J. Inst. Brew. 114(2), 127–133, 2008 To improve the productivity of the beer fermentation process, several strategies can be adopted. One of these promising strategies could be the increase of suspended yeast cells in the reactor. Therefore, the fermentation characteristics of 11 lager yeast strains were studied in normal pitched worts (20 × 106 cells/ mL) (LD) and in worts with a four-fold higher pitching rate (HD). The fermentation rate was 2-4 times increased when high initial cell levels were used. The net yeast growth was somewhat similar between the LD and the HD fermentations, although the FAN uptake level was about 35% higher in the HD fermentations compared with LD. High viabilities were observed throughout the fermentations with high cell loadings. HD fermentations resulted in higher concentrations of all the measured fusel alcohols and higher maxima and residual concentrations of total diacetyl were observed. In contrast, higher levels of most of the esters were found at the normal pitching rate, although the results of isoamyl acetate were not significant. With the help of “Principal Component Analysis”, it became clear that the cell density had an important influence on the flavour profile, but that yeast specific preferences could not be overlooked as they determined the sensitivity of the yeast to the application of higher cell densities. Key words: Fermentation, flavour compounds, high gravity brewing, pitching rate, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, yeast metabolism... Load full article, 7 pages, 478 Kb, PDF file