Beer consumption in Germany fell 2.8 percent in 2009 amid the worst recession since World War II, the biggest drop in 11 years, the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) announced on January, 28.

German brewers and distributors sold 100 million hectolitres of beer and beer-mix drinks last year. The volume has fallen every year since 2006, when Germany’s hosting of the soccer World Cup boosted beer sales.

Last year’s decline was the biggest since consumption fell 2.9 percent in 1998, according to the Wiesbaden-based statistics office. The data don’t include non-alcoholic beer or beer imported from outside the European Union.

Krombacher Brauerei GmbH, maker of Germany’s best-selling lager, expects beer consumption to decline in its home market this year as an aging population drinks less. Consolidation pressure in Germany is rising, Uwe Riehs, Krombacher’s head of marketing, said in a recent interview.

UK beer sales show signs of lifting out of the recessionary slump as 2009 fourth quarter results show the lowest fall for two years, the British Beer & Pub Association’s (BBPA) reported on January, 28.

According to BBPA’s latest UK Quarterly Beer Barometer, total sales – pubs and supermarkets – for the last three months of 2009 fell by 3.6 per cent, the lowest fourth quarter fall since 2006. Sales for the whole of 2009 fell by 4.2 per cent, compared with 5.5 per cent in 2008.

Sales in pubs, bars and restaurants were down 5 per cent in the final three months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008 – the lowest final quarter fall since 2006. Sales for the whole of 2009 were down 5.2 per cent – an improvement on the 9.3 per cent slump in 2008 and 6.5 per cent fall in 2007.

Beer sales in supermarkets and shops declined by 2.1 per cent in the final three months of 2009, compared to a fall of 6.4 per cent in the same period in 2008. In the year as a whole, however, off-trade sales fell by 3.1 per cent – the largest fall since records began in ...More Info

The members of the Union of Brewers in Bulgaria sold 4.87 mln hectolitres of beer on the market last year, the organization of the brewers announced on January, 28.

About 51 hl were exported to Romania, Macedonia and the Bulgarian communities in EU countries and the U.S.

According to analysts, the nation’s beer sales contracted by 11% in 2009 as compared to 2008.

In 2009, Bulgaria’s consumption of beer per capita was 67 litres, which is almost as much as in 2006.

The nation’s malt consumption for beer totalled 100 thousand tonnes in 2009, of which domestically produced malt accounted for about 60-65 thousand tonnes.

Japanese brewer Sapporo Holdings said on January, 28 it expects total net income for fiscal 2009 to be 50% higher than indicated by the consolidated earnings forecast it issued on July 31, 2009.

Net profit is expected to come in at 4.5 billion Yen versus 3.0 billion Yen from the earlier forecast. However, net sales are seen lower, the guidance was lowered by 3.1 percent to 387.5 billion Yen.

Sapporo Holdings expects operating income to reach 12.8 bln Yen. Ordinary income is expected to exceed previous guidance by 2.2 billion yen (at 10.7 bln Yen) and to be higher than in fiscal 2008, when it reached 10.5 bln Yen.

Slovenia's largest beverage producer, brewer Pivovarna Lasko, has said it will sell or close its loss-making Croatian unit, brewery Jadranska Pivovara, in the next few months, Reuters reported on January, 29.

"The unit will have to be closed over the next few months unless a buyer is found by then," Lasko's spokesman Jure Struc said.

Lasko bought Jadranska, based in the Adriatic city of Split, in 2000 and has been trying to sell it for about a year.

Lasko owns 99.1 percent of Jadranska which has 65 employees.

It gave no details of Jadranska's losses.

Canada’s barley exports are forecast to decline marginally in 2009/10 (to 2.3 mln tonnes from 2.38 mln tonnes in 2008/09), due to strong competition in the world malting barley market, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada reported on January, 28.

Carry-out stocks are forecast to fall by 23% to 2.2 mln tonnes, slightly below the 10 year average.

For 2010/11, seeded area is forecast to fall by 3% (to 3.4 mln ha) with production down marginally to 9.45 mln tonnes. Total supply is forecast to fall by 6% to 11.69 mln tonnes due to tighter carry-in stocks. Domestic feed use is expected to decrease due to lower livestock numbers and competition from dried distillers grain.

Total exports 2010/11 are forecast to remain steady at 2.3 mln tonnes. Carry-out stocks are expected to fall by 5% to 2.1 mln tonnes. The off-Board price of feed barley is forecast to rise slightly from 2009-10.

The size of the barley crop in the state of Washington is down dramatically over the past decade, Keith Bailey, AgVentures CEO and industry representative on the Washington Grain Commission, was quoted as saying by Capital Press on January, 29.

Many barley acres came out as farmers put their land into the Conservation Reserve Program or planted wheat, Bailey said.

Lower feed barley production in Washington raises concerns about interest in the crop, said Dan Mader, president of the National Barley Foods Council and a member of the Idaho Barley Commission. Critical mass is necessary to keep exporters to handle and house the crop.

Besides Washington state, other primary barley-producing states are Idaho, Montana and North Dakota. The bulk of barley acres are malting barley, Mader said. US malting barley primarily goes into the domestic market, but the industry is looking to enter the export market, garnering interest from Central and South America, Mader said.

Because the U.S. has not been competitive against Australia, Ukraine and Canadian barley, exports are at a record low.

The only way to increase supplies for export would be to increase barley acreage, said Ty Jessup, merchandiser with CLD Pacific Grain and industry representative on the ...More Info

Joseph C. Lake, R. Alex Speers, Tom A. Gill, Anna-Jean M. Reid and Douglas S. Singer

J. Inst. Brew. 115(4), 296–299, 2009 ABSTRACT
Premature yeast flocculation (PYF) is a poorly understood condition leading to attenuation of fermentation and poor alcohol yields. The yeast in suspension in fermenting worts prepared from either normal or premature flocculating malts was continually measured during the small 15 mL fermentation test recently developed in the Dalhousie laboratories. A simple inexpensive monitoring system was constructed from a laser level, photometric cell and data logger. This system allowed non-destructive data collection of absorbance data (over 700 data points per fermentation) at ~650 nm. A non-linear modeling technique was applied to the data, and yielded two best-fitting logistic models. The model parameters were quantitatively compared to determine if statistical differences between PYF and normal wort were apparent. A student’s t test of the logistic parameters indicated a significant difference (p > 0.025) between control and PYF worts for the increase in absorbance at the beginning of the fermentation. A significant difference (p > 0.0001) in the inflection time of absorbance down-curve between the control and PYF wort was also noted. Key words: fermentation, flocculation, malt, PYF, yeast.
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