Food and beverage giant San Miguel Corp. has formed two new subsidiaries as part of its "restructuring program", GMA News communicated on December, 22.

The two new wholly-owned subsidiaries are Brewery Properties Inc. and Iconic Beverages Inc. for its land holdings in the beer business and beer brands, respectively.

The company provided no further details.

San Miguel Corp. has spun off part of its beer business assets to allow the entry of a foreign investor into its San Miguel Brewery Inc. (SMB) unit, market analysts claimed.

In May 2008, San Miguel said it would embark on a corporate restructuring plan that would involve the divestment of its interests in major subsidiaries such as beer, food and packaging units through an initial public offer or follow-on offer of shares, and the establishment of strategic partnerships with global firms.

San Miguel said it would retain control of at least 51 percent in each of its subsidiaries.

Local analysts said the spin-off could pave the way for the entry of foreign investors into the parent company or SMB.

“The spin-off segregates the assets, which is covered by constitutional limits, such as land,” one analyst said. “[This] could pave the way for a foreign investor into SMB.”

“It has been widely talked ...More Info

The St. Louis-based unit of Belgian brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev will sell its Western Beverage Co., a huge wholesale operation based in Eugene, Oregon, to Major Brands Inc., St. Louis Today communicated on December, 20.

Major Brands Inc., a massive Missouri wine and liquor operation, is forming a new company called Major Eagle Inc. to buy Western Beverage, which churns out an estimated 6 million to 7 million case equivalents per year and reportedly ranks among A-B's top 25 distributorships.

Major Eagle will purchase A-B's 56 percent stake in Western Beverage as well as the 44 percent stake held by other shareholders. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Todd Epsten, the company’s CEO, said he was excited about the prospect of being "in the beer business in an even larger way, and being part of the A-B network."

According to analysts, it is rare for Anheuser-Busch to sell one of its company-owned beer distributorships. It's rarer still for the company to sell to an outsider, someone who is not already involved in carrying A-B's beer.

Anheuser-Busch has traditionally liked to own a few distributorships to give the company a better sense of how things ...More Info

Russia’s brewing industry needs a well-balanced tax policy which would take into account the rapidly changing economic situation and market. Meanwhile, under the global financial crisis, the main task for the Russian brewers is to maintain their positions on the market, Finmarket posted on December, 23.

As a result of the global financial crisis, the nation’s beer industry is now in the doldrums. Last year Russian brewers took a legitimate pride in producing 11.6 bln litres of beer, 15.9% more than in 2006. This year, however, the production decreased by 0.4% during January – November.

The representatives of the Union of Russian brewers believe that the government’s excise policy is the main deterrent to the development of the brewing industry.

“In 2008, the excise on beer was increased by more than 30%, which is much higher than the rate of inflation. Besides, the industry suffers from the growing tariffs of the natural monopolies and the price hike for the raw materials,” Vyacheslav Mamontov, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Union of Russian Brewers, says.

Also, the general situation of the global economy significantly restricts the possibility of companies compensating the growing production costs with internal resources, Mr Mamontov states.

Thus, maintaining positions ...More Info

Brick Brewing Co. Limited announced on December, 24 that it has received financial support of C$1 million, representing its share of the Ontario Craft Brewers Opportunity Fund (OCBOF).

In the third quarter ended October 31, 2008 Brick Brewing offset C$565 thousand of expenditures that met OCBOF spending criteria.

The brewer said the remaining funds will be used to aggressively market its brands to Ontario consumers.

The OCBOF is a four-year, C$8 million initiative. Brick Brewing said it intends to participate in the government program for an additional three years. Funding is available to licensed craft beer manufacturers with annual worldwide production of beer of 300,000 hectolitres or less.

"It is encouraging that government recognizes the importance of a strong, vibrant, locally owned and operated Ontario Craft brewing industry," said George Croft President and CEO of Brick Brewing.

"This support will definitely assist all Ontario Craft Brewers to market their brands to Ontario consumers. The funding will allow Brick to more effectively compete and grow in the Ontario market," Croft added.

Brick Brewing Co. Limited is Ontario's largest Canadian-owned and Canadian-based publicly held brewery.

Unofficial national brewer sales indicate a decrease of about 3.8% in taxable removals from 13.6 barrels (revised) in November 2007 to an estimated 13.1 mln barrels in November 2008, the US Beer Institute posted earlier this month.

Taxable removals measure the amount of beer shipped from domestic brewers to distributors within the U.S. market.

The State-by-State Beer Shipments Estimate for November 2008 decreased by 6.2% from 16.322 barrels in November 2007 to an estimate of 15.361 barrels.

Shipment data represents shipments from brewers to wholesalers (including imports) within the state or entire U.S. and is the best available proxy for “consumption”, the Institute informs.

Ukraine’s beer production fell by 4.7% in November, Pivnoe-delo communicated on December, 22.

The nation’s brewers produced 1.8 mln hl of beer in November 2008, down by 89.2 thousand hl from the same month last year. The brewing enterprises of the Zaporozhye region increased their output by 3.1% to 172 thousand hl. However, the beer-makers of the Zhitomir, Lugansk, and Kiev regions reduced their production by 23%, 64.2% and 0.5% respectively.

As it is reported, in January – November 2008, the production of beer in Ukraine grew by 1.7% to about 30 mln hl. The breweries of the Zaporozhye and Kiev regions increased production by 35.9% and 3.9% respectively, whereas Zhitomir and Lugansk brewed 15.1% and 56% less beer respectively in the reporting period.

Russkiy Solod (Russian Malt), 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, RBC Daily reported on December, 24.

According to Russkiy Solod, the sum also includes a fine for breach of contract obligation for delivery of malt in 2008.

As stated by a market participant, Baltika Breweries refused to purchase the maltster’s production because the prices stipulated in the contract could be twice as high as the current market price.

Russkiy Solod owns three malthouses in Russia and three – in Germany. At the moment it is building two more enterprises. The Russian malthouses produce 375 thousand tonnes of malt annually, those situated in Germany – 245 thousand. In 2007, the company’s turnover amounted to 5.5 bln roubles in Russia and to 90 mln euro in Germany.

Anton Rogachevsky, Baltika’s Director Legal Affairs, declined to comment the situation. Russkiy Solod refused to disclose the exact sum of the debt and that of the fine.

In 2007, Baltika’s total need of malt exceeded 500 thousand tonnes. The brewer met one third of its requirement with malt produced at its own malthouses and ...More Info

A good barley crop in most production regions of the world has bolstered barley supplies, both in the feed and malting classes, but this in turn has increased downward pressure on prices for those commodities, Farm & Ranch Guide reported on December, 19.

That, in a nutshell, describes the current barley market, according to Kelly Kotowicz, at the Alvarado Farmers Elevator in Alvarado, Minnesota.

“I guess I have negative news,” he said. “Barley's down, corn's down, wheat's down, beans are down.”

Kotowicz hinted that the decline in barley prices is due to more than the falling prices of other commodities, but also on vastly improved supplies of barley.

This large crop on a global scale has resulted in U.S. exports being cut in half, according to Kotowicz, and this comes at a time when U.S. barley producers recently harvested a large crop with good quality.

“Because of this situation, the outlook for barley isn't very attractive,” he said. “This probably isn't a bad time to be selling barley right now, if you happen to have some in the bin, because if these conditions continue, we could see these weak prices go right into next year's crop.”

At this time, Kotowicz said he is offering grower's ...More Info

Many Canadian barley growers may find their chances limited for still having their crop selected as malting barley, Grainews warned on December, 23.

Tougher malt specifications and a struggling Canadian Wheat Board barley export program are limiting those opportunities. And this year, thanks to good quality and high production, there is no shortage of selectable barley in Western Canada, experts inform.

With so much selectable barley to choose from, maltsters have been able to toughen up their malt specifications. "In our area barley quality was pretty stellar, so as far as selectable malt goes, the pool is pretty big," said Jon Fehr, marketing manager for Prairie West Terminal at Plenty, Saskatchewan.

This year, Fehr said, Prairie West Terminal selected malting barley for domestic maltsters and has already covered its malting barley sales commitments for the current marketing year.

"We've taken the best of the best and that has left a bunch of producers with malting barley that maybe don't have selection contracts for it," he said.

"Malt specifications are a moving target depending on what the maltster is looking at," said Bruce Burnett, director of weather and market analysis for the Canadian Wheat Board. "This year they are paying particular attention to some ...More Info

UK malting barley needs to meet maltsters' specification to be really profitable and those on fixed price contracts will have done well in 2008, Francis Mordaunt, head of business research at farm business consultant Andersons, was quoted as saying by Farmers Weekly on December, 21.

“There is plenty of malting barley available in Europe and those selling at feed price plus malting premiums have been disappointed,” he said.

For 2009, it seems prudent not to take a gamble on achieving quality specification, according to Mr Mordaunt. Even for those growers who have consistently managed this, long term contracts will provide welcome reassurance.

James J. Hackbarth

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 112(1), 17–24, 2006
Beer Foam collapse is often described as following an EDL ‘Exponential Decay Law’. Parameters are presented in which this is validated at two pouring temperatures, correcting for en-trained beer before tracking dry foam decline over time. The “mean life” time Tau for foam stand on six beer brands was calculated and compared, and the effect of various abuse/control treatments examined. Principal Component Analysis was then applied to correlate measurements of physical parameters with foam Tau. Key words: Exponential decay, foam collapse, foam measure-ment. Load full article, 8 pages, 3219 Kb, PDF file