Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd has signed an agreement with Asahi Breweries Itochu (Holdings) Ltd and Yantai Beer Group to form a new joint venture through a share transfer deal, China Knowledge cited anonymous sources on November, 10.

According to the agreement, Asahi Breweries Itochu (Holdings) Ltd and Yantai Beer Co Ltd will sell 2% and 37% of their stakes respectively in Yantai Beer Asahi, a joint venture beer producer between Asahi Breweries and Yantai Beer Group, to Tsingtao Brewery.

Upon the completion of the deal, Asahi Breweries Itoch, Tsingtao Brewery and Yantai Beer will hold 51%, 39% and 10% respectively in Yantai Beer Asahi, which will be renamed as Yantai Beer Tsingtao Asahi Co Ltd.

After the deal, Yantai Beer will be responsible for the manufacturing of two brands Tsingtao beer and Yantai beer, while sales of the two brands will be conducted by Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd, according to sources.

No further financial details were given.

Asahi currently has a joint venture with Tsingtao Brewery - Qingdao Tsingtao Beer & Asahi Beverage Co Ltd, focusing on the production and sale of oolong tea products.

China has been the world's largest beer consumer since 2003, with the per capita beer consumption amounting to 29 litres ...More Info

India’s beer consumption grew by 6 – 7% in the first six months of the financial year, the Economic Times reported on November, 12.

Industry participants believe this is a moderate achievement resulting from short summer and the boycott of Andhra Pradesh market by the top two brewers, which impacted volume sales significantly.

The brewing industry data shows that without Andhra numbers, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of the national beer sales, the overall domestic volume expanded 9-10% in the first half.

It is estimated that markets like Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh dropped 20-25% on the back of adverse weather conditions, sources said.

Beer volume in Rajasthan was up 15% while Delhi reported nearly 12% upswing. But this was not enough to hold back a 10% decline in consumption across north Indian states. The traditional beer strongholds down south, barring Andhra Pradesh, buoyed growth with Karnataka and Tamil Nadu rising 10-12%.

Sources said consumption in another key market, Maharashtra, remained flat, or possibly down by 1.2%. The eastern market consisting of Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal, churned out 25-30% growth on a smaller base though. Experts say the sober first-half numbers will slowdown India’s beer consumption - reporting double digit growth for ...More Info

Coca-Cola Amatil has stepped back from its stated ambition to be the third-largest player in the Australian beer market, reducing the likelihood of a damaging price war with Foster's and Lion Nathan, the Australian posted on November, 4.

Last year, CCA chief executive Terry Davis said he wanted the company to "become the clear No3 player in the Australian beer market by the end of 2012", through its Pacific Beverages joint venture with British brewing giant SABMiller.

Mr Davis now says the target refers only to CCA's position in the premium beer sector.

"We only compete in the premium beer business - we don't compete in the commercial beer business," he said.

In addition to distributing international SAB beer brands such as Peroni and Pilsner Urquell, PacBev bought boutique NSW brewery Bluetongue, which is building a 50 million litre plant, due for completion in early 2010.

"In the areas that we compete in, and those are the premium beer brands, we expect to be No3 by the end of 2012," Mr Davis said.

"That may well mean that we're No3 overall, but what we're fiercely committing to is to be No3 in the premium beer category."

Analysts said CCA was moving the ...More Info

The Ukrainian - Danish Slavutich Carlsberg Group’s net profit amounted to $17 mln in the nine months of 2008, the company’s CEO Petr Chernyshov was quoted as saying by RBC-Ukraine on November, 11.

Mr Chernyshov noted that Slavutich’s profitability for the reporting period was 4%. The sales volume was 680 mln litres (an increase of 25% over the same period last year), net sales proceeds amounted to $376 mln, EBITDA - $53 mln, operating income - $26 mln.

According to the CEO, during the first nine months of this year, Ukraine’s market grew by 2% on the back of beer price hikes and cold summer.

At the same time, the market share of Carlsberg GRP increased by 3.6% over the period and constituted 23.8% of the nation’s beer market. Mr Chernyshov said in 2008 Ukraine’s beer consumption is 63 litres per capita.

As it was reported, Slavutich Carlsberg Group plans an additional share issue for late November. The obtained funds will be allocated for creating additional capacities in the brewer’s plant in Zaporozhye.

The company said its Slavutich trade mark grew by 37.5% during the nine months of this year. The Tuborg brand grew by 20.4%, Baltika – by 31.2%, Baltika #0 – by 70%, ...More Info

In financial year 2007, Asia Pacific Breweries chalked up overseas revenues of $1.4 billion - up 20.9 per cent from 2006, the company posted in its annual report last week.

The bulk, or almost $180 million, came from Indochina, compared to $121 million in Singapore, underscoring the region's importance to the company's results.

APB has been expanding rapidly into Indochina and South Asia. Indochina, which comprises Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, has consistently been one of APB's best performing markets driving the highest growth rate.

“Regionalisation has been integral to the growth of APB for the past 18 years,” said a company spokesman. Before it began its regional push in 1990, APB registered profit before interest and tax (PBIT) of $101.2 million in 1989. Of this, 32 per cent was from overseas markets, according to the spokesman.

“PBIT, after regionalisation, grew to an impressive $255.2 million in 2007 with the overseas market contributing the greater part of the revenue pie; amounting to 81 per cent of the total yield.

“In FY 2007, the Indochina region contributed 48 per cent of the group's profit before interest and tax, making it APB's largest profit contributor. The region too reported an impressive year-on-year volume gain of 44 per cent ...More Info

SABMiller’s Peruvian subsidiary UCP Backus y Johnston achieved a beer sales volume of 6,709 mln hl over the January – September period, which represents a 9.6% increase over the same period in 2007, SABMiller’s official site informed on November, 6.

Despite the raise of raw materials' prices, this higher sales volume has resulted in an improvement of the net profit, which registered a total of S/. 282.7 million in the first nine months of 2008, equivalent to an increase of 21.4% compared to the same period last year.

During the third quarter, the gross income net of taxes grew S/. 87.5 millions, reaching the amount of S/. 578.6 millions, which means an increase of 17.8% compared to the third quarter last year.

This performance is as a result of Backus's brand portfolio strategy and its focus on winning at each point of sale, obtaining a sales increase of Pilsen Trujillo of S/. 40.6 millions, Cusqueña of S/. 23.9 millions and Pilsen Callao in S/. 19.5 millions, the company posted.

The net results of the third quarter of 2008 reached S/. 117.60 millions, representing 20.3% of the gross income, which is equivalent to a 44.7% more than registered on the same period last ...More Info

Australia's Coopers Brewery has reported a 14.2% increase in annual turnover over the 2007-08 financial year, the Australian communicated on November, 8.

Coopers’ turnover in 2007 – 2008 amounted to AU$161 million (from AU$141 million in the previous year), with after tax profit increasing to AU$20.2 million from AU$19.5 million.

Coopers’ MD Tim Cooper said that, on a national scale, Coopers now accounted for around 3.3% of the beer market.

“Despite an increasingly competitive marketplace, we were able to boost total beer sales in Australia by 4.4%, mainly on the back of continued strong growth in interstate markets,” he said.

The coming economic slowdown threatened to reverse the trend to premium beers that has helped Coopers build market share at the expense of cheaper brews, he said.

In Coopers' home state of South Australia, which consumes 43 per cent of production, sales were down 4 per cent over the financial year amid tough competition from larger rivals Foster's and Lion Nathan.

Interstate sales grew by 13.3 per cent over the financial year and while the pace had since slowed they remained positive at 8 per cent above the same period last year.

Exports, which account for about 3 per cent of beer ...More Info

In normal economic surroundings EU maltsters would continue to construct new malting factories and would have made a great effort to recover part of the lost world market share, experts expressed their opinion earlier this month.

In most years good European malt quality, domestic logistics and frequency of sailing from European ports gave EU malt exporters a competitive edge in many parts of the world.

However, the financial turmoil puts a big question mark behind any prognostications, experts agree.

According to industry participants, the credit squeeze may stop planned construction, and the fear of a strong recession will influence management decisions on investments.

Also, analysts admit that a recession may reverse the long trend of a continuous growth of the beer industry. Particularly, the new beer countries (like China and Russia whose beer markets contributed much to last year’s output figure of 1.787 bln hl) and the poorer developing part of the world may slow their activity, it is admitted.

ABB Grain has closed its feed barley pool (No. 1), but has immediately opened a second feed barley pool at AU$185-195 (FOB), Australia’s leading agribusiness posted on November, 10.

ABB's pooled grain business unit manager Anthony Fitzgerald said Australian barley growers could deliver to the new feed barley pool straight away.

"Some of the overnight trades showed a significant downward movement in the feed barley price, which is a continuation of feed barley’s downward trajectory over recent weeks," Mr Fitzgerald said.

"Therefore, given this ongoing softening in the global feed barley price we’ve decided to close the number one pool to protect the interests of current pool participants.

"We've closed the pool quicker than we would have initially anticipated but we need to respond to international price signals to ensure our pool estimates reflect the reality of the market.

"The downward movement in the feed barley price reflects the lack of international demand for feed grain, which is a result of the glut of feed grain in the world at the moment.

"There’s been a lot of commentary about the large northern hemisphere feed crop, which continues to have a downward impact on prices."

The US total hop production is expected to increase 27 percent over last year, industry participants informed earlier this month.

Hop production in Oregon is estimated at 10.4 million pounds for 2008, up 9 percent from last year.

Washington and Idaho are estimating a 27 percent and a 57 percent production increase respectively.

Yields are expected to be up in Idaho, but down slightly in Oregon and Washington. Growers in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho expect to harvest 8,352 more acres in 2008, it was reported.

Giuliano Dragone, Solange I. Mussatto, Joao B. Almeida e Silva

Abstract

ABSTRACT J. Inst. Brew. 113(4), 391–398, 2007 The present work evaluated the influence of all-malt wort original gravity on fermentative parameters and flavour-active compound formation during primary fermentation of high gravity brewing by a continuous process using a lager yeast immobilised on a natural carrier obtained from brewer’s spent grain (the main brewery by-product). The all-malt worts with original gravity (OG) ranging from 13.4 to 18.5°Plato were prepared by diluting a very-high-gravity wort (20°Plato) with sterile brewery water. The continuous assay was carried out in a bubble column bioreactor with a total working volume of 5.2 litres, at 15°C, using a constant gas flow rate of 250 mL/min (200 mL/min of CO2 and 50 mL/min of air) and a dilution rate of 0.04 h-1 (residence time of 25 h). The results indicated that as the wort OG was increased, the ethanol concentration of the outflowing beer increased. On the other hand, the continuous fermentation of the most concentrated worts (16.6 and 18.5°Plato) resulted in beers with unbalanced flavour profiles due to excessive ethyl acetate formation. The immobilised cell concentration appeared to be nearly independent from increasing wort OG. Key words: Beer, continuous fermentation, high gravity brewing, immobilised yeasts, spent grains, wort concentration. Load full article, 8 pages, 792Kb, PDF file