Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s No. 1 brewer, has put up for sale its central and eastern European operations, Belgian newspaper Le Soir reported on June, 13.

The deal involves 11 breweries in seven countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Czech Republic, Serbia and Montenegro), producing a total of 15 mln hl of beer annually. According to the newspaper, the operations are part of a "packaged" deal to be sold as a whole. The breweries are expected to fetch about $2 billion and will attract the interest of rival brewers including world’s second-largest beer maker SABMiller and Heineken, as well as private-equity firms.

A spokesman for AB InBev declined to comment.

Le Soir said the brewer of Budweiser, Stella and Beck's beer was divesting its central European operations considered as fragmented and non-strategic, to focus on its north and south American operations.

Barclays is advising the company on the deal and at least one private equity firm CVC Partners, is mentioned as interested in the deal, Le Soir reported in its weekend edition.

AB InBev has recently begun to reduce its indebtedness by selling some of its assets.

AB InBev sold its South Korean subsidiary Oriental Brewery to private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. last ...More Info

Heineken NV, the Netherlands-based world's third-largest brewer, will close two breweries in the Czech Republic, Reuters cited a company statement on June, 15.

Heineken, whose Czech division bought the Krusovice and Drinks Union breweries last year, said that the Kutna Hora and Znojmo breweries would be closing.

About 35 employees were at risk of redundancy - 17 from Kutna Hora and 18 from Znojmo. However, up to 17 employees from Znojmo and up to 15 from Kutna Hora would likely be transferred to other sites, the brewer said.

Heineken said the savings made from the closures would be included in its total cost management programme, a three-year cost-cutting programme launched at the start of this year.

South Korean retail giant Lotte Group confirmed on June, 16 it might build a brewery to become the country's third beer company, after it dropped out of a deal to buy Oriental Brewery (OB) earlier this year, Reuters communicated on the same day.

Last month, private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co agreed to buy South Korea's No. 2 beer company OB from Anheuser-Busch InBev for $1.8 billion, with Lotte refusing to put in a final offer for pricing and other reasons.

"We are looking at several options and building a beer factory is one under consideration," Lotte Group spokesman Park Sang-sup said by telephone, adding the group had yet to make any detailed decisions.

Lotte, with its financial muscle, had been viewed as a strong candidate to acquire OB. Beer would complete its product line-up, which includes the popular local liquor soju and whisky.

But analysts had played down the likelihood of Lotte building a brewery business from scratch, considering the huge investment required and difficulty in penetrating a market dominated by Hite Brewery and unlisted OB.

Private equity firms are interested in buying Anheuser-Busch InBev's central and Eastern European operations, Dow Jones Newswires cited on June, 16 people familiar with the situation.

U.S. buyout shops Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and TPG and London-based CVC Capital Partners are among those who have expressed interest in the business, which spans several countries in the region and could command a sales price of around EUR2 billion.

SABMiller Plc, AB InBev’s nearest competitor, is the only “obvious” strategic buyer, Trevor Stirling, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in London is quoted as saying by Bloomberg. The analyst claims both Heineken NV and Carlsberg A/S are focused on reducing debt after they split Scottish & Newcastle Plc’s assets last year.

An official at London-based SABMiller declined to comment. The world’s second-largest brewer may face antitrust concerns in markets that it already dominates, such as Hungary and the Czech Republic. Carlsberg and Heineken may subsequently buy “bits and pieces” SAB might sell on, Stirling said.

Staropramen, the No. 2 Czech brewer, is an attractive enough asset that it could be sold separately and at a higher valuation than the other divisions, one of the people said.

It is unclear whether the brewing giant's two largest markets there, ...More Info

The presence of the most important international brewing groups as well as the big number of local brands on the Romanian beer market testify to the fact that it has reached the level of saturation, HRB Expert communicated on June, 17.

Romania’s beer market has seen a rapid development during the last decade. Significant growth was registered in all its segments: special beers, super premium, premium, mainstream, economy, among which the most significant increase registered by the super premium international segment. In 2008, the super premium segment had 9.3% of the nation’s beer market, the premium segment had a share of 11.7%, mainstream – 36.2%, economic – 40.3%, zero-alcohol – 2.5%. As for packaging, the market share of beer in PET bottles remained unchanged at 44.5%, whereas that of canned beer grew to 12.2%. The segment of glass bottled beer had 40% of the Romanian beer market, whereas the keg segment had a 3.3% share in 2008 (AC Nielsen).

According to MEMRB data, lagers remain the preferred beer with Romanians. Besides, consumers show an increasing interest in specialty and zero-alcohol beer.

Romania’s beer market has a potential for growth in all its segments, in spite of the fact that the ...More Info

Bulgaria’s beer consumption will continue falling this year, Carlsberg Bulgaria CEO Alexander Gruncharov was quoted as saying by Horemag.bg on June, 16.

In 2008, beer sales dropped 2%, and since the beginning of 2009, the decrease has reached 8% as compared to the same period last year. It is not ruled out that Bulgaria’s beer sales may fall as much as 10% due to the financial crisis this year, the CEO said.

Over 2008, Carlsberg Bulgaria invested BGL8.5 mln and tripled its draught beer production. This year, the company’s investments will make about BGL25-30 mln.

Carlsberg Bulgaria has a 27% share on the nation’s beer market. With 94 mln litres sold in 2008, its Shumensko Pivo is the best selling beer brand in Bulgaria.

Hong Kong-based Kingway Brewery Holdings Limited announced on June, 12 that it proposes to revise some terms of cooperation with HAPCO, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Heineken-APB (China) Pte Ltd.

On 22 April 2008, Kingway Brewery said its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, Kingway Foshan, entered into an agreement with HAPCO for the manufacturing and supply of beer to be sold under the ANCHOR brand.

Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, HAPCO was required to purchase not less than 30,000 tonnes of beer for a period of twelve months commencing from the day HAPCO received its first batch of quality approved products on 29 July 2008. The approved annual caps for the years 2008 and 2009 were RMB22,000,000 and RMB15,000,000 respectively.

The actual sales volume and revenue for the Continued Connected Transaction in 2008 were 6,331 tonnes of beer and RMB5,987,000 respectively. The actual sales volume and revenue for the Continued Connected Transaction in the first five months in 2009 were 7,449 tonnes of beer and RMB7,020,000 respectively.

The sales revenue in 2008 and for the first five months in 2009 did not exceed the approved annual caps for 2008 and 2009 respectively. However, since the total purchase volume by HAPCO for the year ...More Info

Heineken NV, the world's third-largest brewer, is in talks to build a malting facility at its new brewery in South Africa, Reuters reported on June, 16.

A deal is expected soon, Peralt van der Merwe, Heineken's director for business and legal affairs, is quoted as saying.

According to Mr. Van der Merwe, the Dutch brewer is negotiating with "a major corporation" to build the facility. He declined to name the party.

The brewery, in which global drinks maker Diageo Plc has a 25 percent stake, is due for completion later this year.

The malting plant's capacity would be around 40,000 tonnes a year.

"An investment group will build it and I will get certain take-out guarantees, meaning I will buy a certain amount of the malted barley on a take-out basis," Van der Merwe saids.

He said Heineken was currently importing malted barley in preparation for the brewery's startup late in the third quarter or early in the fourth, after which the new plant would take over malting.

The brewery would have an initial capacity of 3 million hectolitres, which could later be expanded to 6 million hectolitres.

"For a brewery the size of 3 million hectolitres you would need about 40,000 tonnes of malt and ...More Info

Australia's largest maltster, Joe White Maltings, expects to start construction of a new barley malting plant at Minto in southern-western Sydney by the end of June, The Land reported on June, 17.

The company aims to meet thus the demand of the rapidly growing Asian beer market.

The plant should be completed by February 2011 and will process 110,000 tonnes of malting barley a year to lift Joe White's total capacity thoughout Australia to 610,000 tonnes, with about 500,000t of that exported.

Barley will be railed in from western NSW and Victoria, and the malt packed in containers and sent to Port Botany for export.

The company, owned by ABB Grain, says the Asian market for malt has been growing by from five to nine per cent a year in the past three years, and growth is continuing this year.

The plant will be adjacent to the intermodal transport site of Macarthur Intermodal Shopping Terminal (MIST) project which includes Indendent Railways of Australia (formerly Lachlan valley Freight).

ABB had originally considered investing in MIST but has agreed only to use the logictial services provided by MIST, and has bought the land for the plant adjacent to the MIST site.

Meanwhile, work has yet to start on ...More Info

According to the latest Australian Crop Report by ABARE, the nation’s area sown to barley in 2009-10 is forecast to fall by 1 per cent from the previous season, to less than 4.5 million hectares.

Barley production is forecast to increase by 13 per cent to 7.7 million tonnes, reflecting an expected improvement in yields in Victoria and South Australia.

In New South Wales, the area planted to barley in 2009-10 is forecast to increase by 2 per cent to 1 million hectares. Barley production is forecast to reach around 1.6 million tonnes in 2009-10, a 4 per cent increase from the previous season, which reflects a forecast improvement in yields.

Victoria’s barley production in 2009-10 is forecast to be 1.6 million tonnes which is nearly double the previous year’s harvest. The forecast increase in production is the result of an assumed return to average yields (1.73 t/ha). The area planted to barley is forecast to decline by 2 per cent to 930,000 hectares.

The area planted to barley in Queensland in 2009-10 is forecast to remain unchanged from the previous season at around 100,000 hectares. Barley production is forecast at 171,000 tonnes, compared with 197,000 tonnes in the 2008-09 season.

Western Australian barley area ...More Info

According to preliminary data, the exports of Russian barley amounted to 0.58 mln tons in May 2009, Sovecon reported on June, 11.

This is not only the highest monthly rate in the current season but also an absolute record, industry observers said.

Sovecon analysts believe that the record volume was possible due to reduced exports of Ukrainian barley, which in April fell to the lowest rate in the current season. Besides, the increase in Russian barley supplies fell on the period of growing international prices, which added about $40/t in mid April – early June.

As from the beginning of June, however, the situation on the international grain markets has been changing. The last week saw barley prices heading downwards, it is reported.

The USDA National Ag Statistics Survey released its 2009 Hop Acreage forecast on June, 10.

Overall, US hop acreage strung for harvest in Oregon, Washington and Idaho is forecast at 40,125 acres, 2% less than 2008, but 30% more than 2007.

Washington, with 29,908 acres strung for harvest, accounts for 75% of the US total acreage for 2009. Oregon reported 6,185 acres (15% of the total), with Idaho hop growers accounting for the remaining 10% (4,032 acres).

Only Idaho increased acreage from a year ago.

Dennis E. Briggs, Stanley M. Sole, and Philip Latham

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 115(1), 41–48, 2009 Triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining of individual isolated barley aleurone layers was carried out under aseptic conditions and the amount of formazan generated under a standardized incubation period was quantified. The nature of the tests minimized or excluded the influences of grain damage, ageing or contaminating microorganisms. Embryos from selected Triumph barley grains, having intensely or poorly staining aleurone layers, were grown on to maturity. Collected grain was analysed and embryos from the highest-staining progeny from the highstaining aleurone line and the lowest-staining progeny of the low-staining aleurone line were grown on to yield grain of the second selected generations. Aleurone layers of the high-staining line continued to stain intensely, respired strongly, and generated large amounts of alpha-amylase in response to gibberellic acid and embryos from these grains respired and grew vigorously, as did whole grains. In contrast, the aleurone layers of grains from the low-staining line continued to stain poorly and respired weakly, generated little alpha-amylase in response to gibberellic acid, the embryos respired slowly and lacked vigour and, like the whole grains, grew poorly. It is proposed that these results are the consequence of the selection procedure separating lines with superior and inferior mitochondria. If this apparently novel approach using TTC staining is confirmed as being valid, it opens a new way for plant breeders to select for more vigorous cereal lines. Key words: Barley, mitochondria, novel plant-breeding possibilities, tetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining, uniformity, vigour. Load full article, 8 pages, 131 Kb, PDF file