Danish brewer Carlsberg's sales in Western Europe will probably increase this year from 2009, despite persistently tough market conditions, the head of the division was quoted as saying by Reuters on March, 16.

"I need to get sales up, and I need to get costs out," said Jesper Friis, head of the division that comprises France, Britain, Switzerland, Greece and the Balkans.

"We plan that sales should go up and I'm pretty sure sales will go up (in 2010)," he is quoted as saying.

Western and northern Europe, which the brewer combines in its financial reporting, generate most of group sales. But the western markets are mature and saturated so the world's fourth biggest brewer's main medium-term growth market is Russia.

Carlsberg last month forecast a slight decline in the western and northern European market this year, after a 5-6 percent drop last year including a slight improvement in the fourth quarter, and said it saw scope to improve its market position in several of its key markets.

With beer markets seen under pressure for years, Carlsberg is striving to hold down costs, to invent alternative products, and to increase its market share.

Speaking of western Europe and Carlsberg's market shares there, Friis said: "The trend ...More Info

Philippines’ San Miguel Corp. has confirmed plans to sell various assets but ruled out further divestment in the company's flagship, San Miguel Brewery Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported on March, 17.

"No beer," Ramon Ang, San Miguel Corp.'s president, said when asked if the divestment will include the beer operations.

The company this week confirmed a comment by San Miguel Chairman Eduardo Cojuangco, reported in local newspaper Business Mirror, that the firm is open to selling stakes in San Miguel Brewery and a 27% stake in power distributor Meralco "at the right price." Mr. Cojuangco was quoted as saying when asked about the two units: "At the right price, anybody can buy anything. Now it's a question of what is the right price."

San Miguel, however, has clarified that it hasn't received any offer or proposal for the sale of its stake in San Miguel Brewery or the stake in the power distributor.

Japan's Kirin Holdings Co., San Miguel's partner in the beer maker, has expressed interest in increasing its stake from the 48% it owns in San Miguel Brewery.

Ron Rodrigo, research head of DBP-Daiwa Securities, said it isn't likely San Miguel will give up control of the brewery, which has existing operations ...More Info

World’s No. 1 brewer AB InBev announced on March, 15 a set of aggressive three-year global environmental goals as part of its Better World commitment.

The Leuven, Belgium-based brewer said it aims to achieve a water usage goal for plants of 3.5 hectolitres of water for each hectolitre of production by the end of 2012. Achieving this goal would establish AB InBev as the most water-efficient global brewer in the world. The new usage level will represent a 30 percent reduction per unit of production in the company’s water usage worldwide since 2007, saving enough water to fill 25,000 Olympic-size swimming pools1.

In 2007, water use in AB InBev’s plants was 5.03 hectolitres per hectolitre of production; in 2009, water use was 4.3 hectolitres per hectolitre of production.

Besides, the brewer has set the ambitious global environmental goal of achieving a 99 percent recycling and reuse rate by the end of 2012 – up from 97.2 percent in 2007 and 98 percent in 2009. It will also achieve a 10 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and energy use for every hectolitre of production.

Since 2007, the company has reduced energy use per hectolitre by 10.9 percent.

Swiss brewers produced a total of 3.55 mln hl of beer in 2009, the nation’s Brewers’ Union reported earlier this week.

In 2008, the country’s beer output totalled 3.63 mln hl.

Total beer volume consumed by the country last year amounted to 4.48 mln hl, whereas per capita beer consumption constituted 57.2 litres.

Switzerland imported 925,540 hl of beer from 74 countries worldwide. A total of 52,647 hl of Swiss beer was exported last year to about 33 nations.

The flood of barley into European Union intervention stocks this season is not a major concern and there are no immediate plans to dispose of the grain, a senior EU official was quoted as saying by Reuters on March, 16.

"I think we will just sit on it and wait for better times. It is not unmanageable in any way," Lars Hoelgaard, Deputy Director General of DG Agriculture and Rural Development for the European Commission said.

Hoelgaard expects intervention barley stocks to reach around four million to five million tonnes by the end of the current season.

He noted that cereal stocks in intervention stores had reached about 30 million tonnes and has been disposed of without too much difficulty.

"It is not so preoccupying (to have 4 to 5 million tonnes)," he said.

Hoelgaard said part of the use of intervention stocks were sales to support a social programme - the most deprived person scheme.

Hoelgaard noted that unlimited intervention for barley was ending at the end of the current season but did not rule out the possibility that the Commission could decide, under certain conditions, to allow sales into intervention stores.

"Intervention (for barley) hasn't disappeared but will now be based on a decision by ...More Info

There continues to be high inventories of barley in storage, and while it will take time to utilize these inventories, barley still holds a solid potential for the upcoming season, Steve Edwardson, executive administrator of the North Dakota Barley Council, was quoted as saying by Farm & Ranch Guide on March, 12.

“Many producers indicate that they still have considerable quantities of barley in storage,” Mr. Edwardson said. “Producers that did not have a contract are storing their barley to wait for price rallies, and delivery for malt barley under contract will be spread throughout the coming months. Those who did not have their production contracted will find it difficult to market due to surplus quantities and sluggish export demands.”

The latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate (WASDE) report released by USDA in February shows the beginning U.S. stocks for the 2009-2010 marketing year at 89 million bushels, up approximately 30 percent from the 68 million bushels for the 2008-2009 year, Mr. Edwardson said.

Exports are projected to be off by 10 percent and total 225 million bushels.

“Exports of feed barley to Japan are down, largely due to increased supply to Japan from Australia and Ukraine,” he said.

The production figures from the ...More Info

Koji Suzuki, Kazumaru Iijima, Kanta Sakamoto, Manabu Sami and Hiroshi Yamashita

J. Inst. Brew. 112(2), 173–191, 2006 ABSTRACT
Hop bitter acids play a major role in enhancing the microbio-logical stability of beer. However, beer spoilage lactic acid bac-teria (LAB) are able to grow in beer by exhibiting strong hop resistance. Recently two hop resistance genes, horA and horC, have been identified in beer spoilage Lactobacillus brevis ABBC45. The horA gene was shown to encode an ATP depen-dent multidrug transporter that extrudes hop bitter acids out of bacterial cells. In contrast, the product of the horC gene confers hop resistance by presumably acting as a proton motive force (PMF)-dependent multidrug transporter. Strikingly, the homo-logs of horA and horC genes were found to be widely and al-most exclusively distributed in various species of beer spoilage LAB strains, indicating these two hop resistance genes are ex-cellent species-independent genetic markers for differentiating the beer spoilage ability of LAB. Furthermore the nucleotide sequence analysis of horA and horC homologs revealed that both genes are essentially identical among distinct beer spoilage species, indicating horA and horC have been acquired by beer spoilage LAB through horizontal gene transfer. Taken collec-tively, these insights provide a basis for applying horA and horC to the species-independent determination of beer spoilage LAB, including yet uncharacterized species. In addition to the hop resistance mechanisms mediated by multidrug transporters, pro-ton translocating ATPase and the ATP production system were shown to contribute to the hop resistance mechanisms in beer spoilage LAB by generating PMF and ATP that are necessary for survival in beer. Key words: Beer spoilage ability, hop resistance, horA, horC, horizontal gene transfer, lactic acid bacteria, species-indepen-dent genetic markers. Load full article, 19 pages, 2517kb , PDF file