North American and Australian malt industries are affected by the beer market crisis as well, but to a smaller extent than the EU, a research note published earlier this month claims.

Beer sales are relatively stable in the NAFTA countries and Oceania. Mercosur industries enjoy a good beer market, an overall malt deficit and a tax protection from overseas imports. Venezuela sits on large stocks and faces an uncertain future, experts said.

China has a malt overcapacity since many years. Inland factories only produce upon demand and not at all in the warm season. The large seaboard maltsters increased their exports from 186,000 tons in 2007 to 314,000 tons in 2008 and will improve those figures for 2009.

China will sell more beer again this year, but the increase will possibly not be in the double digits, analysts forecast.

Japanese beer sales dropped 2.1% till end July, regrettably those of “real” beer by 7.3%. In Thailand, Beer Thai reports a slump of sales.

Africa is the good continent, where beer sales grow continuously, this year again by at least 5%.

It is assumed that worldwide at least 1.5 mln tons of malt must still be bought for 2010, from all sources to ...More Info

Chilean beverage company Compania Cervecerias Unidas SA (CCU) announced on October, 8 its third quarter 2009 preliminary volumes.

In Chile, beer sales fell 4.7% to 1.02 mln hl on the year in the quarter and 2.2% to 3.47 mln hl in the first nine months, CCU said.

In neighbouring Argentina, beer volume sales inched up 0.1% to 784 thousand hl in the third quarter, but jumped 11% to 2.66 mln hl in the first three quarters of 2009.

CCU is the largest Chilean brewer and the second-largest Argentine brewer. The company has licensing agreements with Heineken Brouwerijen B.V., Anheuser-Busch Incorporated, PepsiCo Inc., Paulaner Brauerei AG, Schweppes Holdings Limited, Guinness Brewing Worldwide Limited and Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.

The Federal Court of Australia approved the planned takeover of Lion Nathan by Japanese Kirin, the Australian brewer reported on October, 7.

Japan’s No. 1 brewer will acquire the remaining shares in Lion Nathan that it does not already own and thus take it over for A$3.5 bln.

The scheme will be implemented on October, 21, Lion Nathan said.

After a small recovery in August beer sales for January - August stand at 68.6 mln hl, 3.7% below last year, official statistics data show.

Inland sales are only down 2.8%, but exports dropped by 8.9%.

Alcohol-free beer, which is not included in the German beer statistics, has a market share of 3% and sales rose by 8.1% during the first semester of 2009.

The warm September must have been very positive for beer drinking, experts comment.

Molson Coors will invest 10 million pounds for marketing Cobra Beer, the brand with which it has entered into a partnership, Marketing Week reported on October, 8.

The new owners of Cobra Beer are looking to position the brand as the beer to drink with spicy food at home as well as in restaurants.

The Cobra Beer Partnership, a joint venture between Molson Coors and the brand’s founder Lord Karan Bilimoria, says £10m will be invested in marketing the brand over the next three years to tap into the “potential of ethnic food and beer dining”.

Kevin Wallace, brand director of Cobra Beer Partnership, says it will look to build on the brand’s existing strength in restaurants as well as linking it with at-home food rituals, such as “curry nights”.

To this end, Wallace says the Partnership is exploring several marketing options including partnerships with supermarkets and food brands. It is also sponsoring National Curry Week in November.

He adds previous plans to focus on pushing the brand in pubs and bars have been shelved in favour of “celebrating” its dominance in Indian restaurants.

In other new developments, brand variant Cobra Light is being axed, while the female-targeted Bite range is being reviewed.

King Cobra ...More Info

Proposed tax increases on beer, if approved by Congress, would likely force an increase in prices with a negative effect on sales volume, the chief executive of Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo SAB was quoted as saying by Dow Jones on October, 7.

The government has proposed hiking the excise tax on beer to 28% next year from 25%, and is also seeking a new 2% sales tax on all goods and services as a way of recovering lost revenue from lower oil production.

According to Modelo Chief Executive Carlos Fernandez, the increased tax burden would be passed on to consumers via higher prices for the company's products.

"That would surely reduce volumes and have an impact on investment and also the labor force," Fernandez said.

Modelo is Mexico's biggest brewer and maker of the Corona brand.

Local competitor Femsa confirmed last week that it's in talks with several companies involving its beer unit.

A potential Femsa merger with another brewer "would represent additional competition, and we're used to that," Fernandez said.

The news of the discussions (reportedly with SABMiller and Heineken) caused Femsa shares to soar last week, and also pushed Modelo shares higher as it fueled takeover speculation.

Anheuser-Busch InBev has a ...More Info

This year, Ukraine has harvested about 12 mln tons of barley whereas Russia’s total barley production amounted to 17.5 mln tons, industry observers reported on October, 2.

Quality of feed and malting barley is predominantly good. Ukraine and South Russia complain about very dry conditions hindering planting of winter grains.

The U.S. crop estimate of 4.5 mln tons remains unchanged, maltsters are content with the harvested quality.

Rains and frost may hit Canada during the first week of October. After beneficial rains in August and warm, sunny harvest weather in September farmers were able to harvest 80 – 85% of their barley crop in good quality and condition. It will give Canada a sufficiently large barley pool and a good malt quality on top of it, experts believe.

Argentina received more rainfalls in September than in months before. Crop estimates vary from 1.3 to 1.65 mln tons - a large, but understandable difference due to the long drought and late rains.

EU’s total barley crop estimate is set at about 61 – 62 mln tonnes this year, industry analysts communicated at the beginning of October.

The harvest is complete in all EU nations. Scotland and Finland finished their combining during the second half of September, under good conditions. The former had experienced frightening weather conditions in August and early September, as a consequence splits, skinning and pregermination have rendered about 20% of the Northern crop (borders and central Scotland) unfit for malting.

In view of the large British crop of about 4 mln tons spring barley the down-grading of relatively small quantities does not really affect the abundant supply of malting barley, experts said.

Statistics Canada posted on October, 8 its new grains and oilseeds outlook for 2009-10.

For 2009-10, the nation’s barley production is estimated to decrease by 22% from 2008-09 to 9.2 mln tons due to significantly lower yields and harvested area.

Supply is forecast to decrease by 10% to 12.04 mln tons as higher carry-in stocks partly offset the drop in production.

Domestic feed use is expected to decline due to lower livestock numbers while exports fall to 2.3 mln tons because of large world barley and corn supplies.

Carry-out stocks are expected to fall by 37% to 1.8 mln tons. The off-board price for barley is forecast to fall by about C$25/t while the Sept PRO for malting barley (Sel CW 2-Row) is C$212/t.

UK total barley production rose to 6.7 million, up 10 percent from 6.1 million a year earlier, Reuters cited Britain's farm ministry on October, 8.

"This increase in (barley) production is due to the 12 percent increase in the area planted to 1.2 million hectares. The yield for barley was slightly down on last year at 5.8 tonnes per hectare," the report said.

Spring barley production rose 25 percent to 4.2 million tonnes while winter barley fell 8 percent to 2.6 million.

Denis DE KEUKELEIRE, Arne HEYERICK, Kevin HUVAERE, Leif H. SKIBSTED and Mogens L. ANDERSEN

Abstract:
The pronounced sensitivity of beer to light is well known and leads irreversibly to the formation of lightstruck flavor (LSF), the so-called “skunking” of beer. It is the cause of a significant shelf-life problem for the brewing industry and is the primary reason for the storage of beer in darkcolored containers. The light-sensitivity of beers was first recognized as early as in 1875, however it was not until the early sixties that the basic science underlying the formation of LSF was established. Studies using model systems showed that LSF was produced in a non-enzymic light-induced reaction involving riboflavin (1) (as a sensitizer), a suitable sulfur-containing compound, and isohumulones, the main beer-bittering principles. The typical skunky flavor was attributed to the formation of 3- methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol (MBT), a pungent off-flavor in beer with a flavor threshold of few ng per litre. Later it was shown that also direct UV irradiation of isohumulones affords radical precursors of MBT. Still, the exact reaction mechanism remained elusive until recent detailed investigations. Herein, the mechanistic details for the formation of LSF in beer are comprehensively reviewed.
Cerevisia, 33(3) 2008
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