Brewing giant SABMiller Plc said growth in lager volumes may brake in Africa, one of its top performing regions, next fiscal year as the global crisis reaches the poorest continent, Reuters reported on April, 1.

The brewer of Peroni and Grolsch said it would keep beer volumes rising given African economies are relatively well cushioned from the world economic slowdown, but said the ripple effects were already being felt.

"For beer, we are certainly expecting volume growth, but the extent to which it matches this year I don't know," Mark Bowman, managing director for SABMiller Africa, said in an interview.

He said lager growth had already slowed slightly in the fourth quarter compared to a 4 percent rise in underlying African volumes in the three months to end December.

"My gut feeling is it will be slower (next fiscal year), but we would be very surprised to lose growth."

Excluding South Africa, Africa accounts for an estimated 10 percent of earnings at London-based SABMiller, the world's No. 2 brewer after the Belgian Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Bowman said that including its soft drinks and traditional beer business, which together comprise half the region's sales, the firm expects double digit volume growth this year and next. SABMiller is ...More Info

Austria’s 173 breweries produced 8.546 mln hl of beer in 2008, Brewers Union of Austria wrote in its annual report published at the end of March.

The domestic beer output rose 2.2% compared to the previous year.

The total revenue of the Austrian brewing industry amounted to more than EUR1 bln and the total tax proceeds from beer constituted more than EUR700 mln.

Austria’s total beer consumption estimate for 2008 is 9.126 mln hl (+ 1.45% compared to 2007). The per capita beer consumption is estimated at 109.3 litres (108.2 litres in 2007).

South Korea’s Hite Brewery said exports to Japan more than doubled in 2008 as compared to the previous year, Chosun.com reported on April, 3.

The company said its export earnings amounted to US$16.07 mln, up 129.4% from 2007.

Hite Brewery exports some dozen beer brands to Japan including Prime the Beer and Prime Draft.

"Our success is due to strict localization strategies that include securing distribution channels through closely monitored operation and developing products that appeal to Japanese tastes," the brewery said in a press release.

Asia Pacific Breweries announced on April, 2 that its indirect wholly owned subsidiaries in New Zealand have incorporated three new companies.

The brewer’s subsidiaries, Barworks Group Limited (“BWGL”), and Barworks Holdings Limited (“BHL”), now include the following companies:

1. Hurstmere Pubs Limited, in which BWGL holds a 75% stake, with the remaining 25% stake held by BHL. The initial paid up share capital of the aforesaid entity is NZ$268,100.

2. Riccarton Hospitality 2007 Ltd, in which BWGL holds a 75% stake, with the remaining 25% stake held by BHL. The initial paid up share capital of the aforesaid entity is NZ$1,085,300. 3. Gaults on Quay (2009) Limited, in which BWGL holds a 90% stake, with the remaining 10% stake held by BHL. The initial paid up share capital of the aforesaid entity is NZ$1,680,000.

BWGL is a wholly owned subsidiary of DB Breweries Limited which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company. BHL is a wholly subsidiary of BWGL.

The new companies have been incorporated for the purposes of investing in food and beverage outlets in New Zealand.

Additionally, BWGL has also entered into a joint venture with the Keppel Brown Trust to form a new company, Market St Holdings Limited (“MSHL”). ...More Info

The Czech Budweiser Budvar Brewery posted on March, 31 it was very satisfied with the international sales increase of its beer in 2008.

At the beginning of 2007, Budweiser Budvar, N.C. entered into import contracts regarding beer sales and distribution with supranational brewing groups Anheuser-Busch InBev and Carlsberg Breweries A/S.

In 2008, the business cooperation took place in seven countries. Anheuser-Busch InBev has been selling Budweiser Budvar Premium Lager within the USA whereas the Danish group Carlsberg has been handling the distribution in Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Croatia, Serbia and Sweden. Additionally, Carlsberg took over the sales of Budweiser Budvar beer also in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2009.

“We are very satisfied with the results of the cooperation with the supranational brewing concerns. The seven countries our partners look after saw an overall year-on-year sales increase of Budweiser Budvar beer by 15.3 %,” says Budweiser Budvar’s export sales manager Renata Pánková.

The 2008 export to these countries reached the total volume of 31,924 hectolitres of beer.

“I most value the results on the largest markets of this group. The year-on-year sales increase in the USA amounted to 7 % along with even larger increase of 27 % in Croatia,” adds Renata Pánková.

The pale ...More Info

The beer unit of conglomerate San Miguel Corp. has raised a bigger amount than its target from its bond offering, GMANews.TV reported on April, 4.

San Miguel Brewery Inc. said it completed the offering of the peso-denominated bond worth P38.3 billion.

The offering fetched a total amount of P38.8 billion.

The bond offering had three series: Series A, which has aggregate principal amount of P13.59 billion having a term of three years beginning April 3, 2009 and ending on April 3, 2012, with a fixed interest rate of 8.25 percent per annum; Series B with an aggregate principal amount of P22.4 billion with a fixed term of five years and one day beginning on issue data and ending on April 4, 2014; Series C with an aggregate amount of P2.81 billion with a 10-year terms and a fixed interest rate of 10.5 percent per annum.

The bond, which is seen as the country’s biggest ever bond offer, will pay for the beer brands, intellectual property rights and property from San Miguel.

San Miguel has disclosed that it would sell the beer brands worth P32 billion and land on which the breweries stand at P6.8 billion to SMBI.

SMBI had appointed UBS as its financial adviser.

The EU’s malting barley market is still rarely sought after by consumers, La Depeche published on April, 3.

There are no records of deals concerning the 2008 crop. Actually, decreasing beer consumption forced brewers to reduce their purchases.

Industry experts expect reports of huge barley stocks across all Europe, which is pressing down the prices of the next crop.

The feed barley market of the European Union is completely deserted, it is reported. The demand is rare and the offers are very limited.

Gianluca Donadini, Giorgia Spigno, Maria Daria Fumi and Roberto Pastori

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 114(4), 329–342, 2008 The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the sensory characteristics of beer and food that harmonically complement each other respectively from the consumer or the sommelier point of view. With this in view, the most desirable beer and everyday Italian food combinations were explored. Eighteen beer samples, easily available in the off-premise chain in Italy, and 9 dishes of Italian cuisine, were selected. The level of match of each beer and food combination was determined by a group of 51 consumers and by seven food experts using a 9- point Likert-like scale of suitability. Agreements and disagreements between food professionals and consumers were studied and discussed. Generally speaking, most of the dishes were poor complements to the beers selected for this study, for both regular consumers and experts. In particular, seafood salad, spaghetti with tomato sauce and creamed vegetable soup were inappropriate to nearly all of the beer samples overall. However, both consumers and experts found appropriate and interesting beer and food pairing choices, despite usually indicating different ideal beer samples and different levels of match for the same food. This confirmed that certain flavours of food and beer mix together better than others and indicates that consumers may have a different perception of the level of match between beer and food from experts. For regular consumers, the suitability to food was found to positively correlate with the sensory liking of beer. Furthermore the pairing suitability was not equivalent across consumer gender and age class, although these differences had a moderate to weak effect on the level of the final match. Correlations between sensory properties of food and beer samples are reported and discussed. Key words: beer, beer flavour, food, food pairing, pairing methods, sommelier. Load full article, 14 pages, 469 Kb, PDF file