SABMiller Plc and its Chinese partner China Resources Snow Breweries will pursue acquisitions and increase production capacity to boost growth in the world’s most populous nation, Bloomberg reported on March, 21.

According to Ari Mervis, managing director of SABMiller’s Asia operations, building capacity in China (which had 593 breweries in 2009) remains ‘relatively cheap’.

SABMiller/China Resources Snow venture will also continue to open new breweries, he said.

SABMiller, which owns 49 percent of China Resources Snow, competes with Budweiser maker AB InBev NV and Tsingtao Brewery Co. in a market where per capita beer consumption of 30 litres last year exceeded the global average of 27 litres, according to Seema International Ltd.

China Resources Snow Breweries is also boosting sales of premium brews to tap rising incomes in the world’s fastest- growing major economy.

Rising household income and health consciousness in China are prompting consumers to shift to better-quality products, said Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai. Such acquisitions will help both foreign players that are trying to break into new markets and local producers with better access to restaurants and convenience stores yet which typically compete on prices.

“The problem is too much of the ...More Info

Belgian brewer Duvel Moortgat said on March, 19 it managed to hold off the impact of the economic crisis in 2009.

During the 2009 financial year, the Duvel Moortgat Group realised a consolidated turnover of €113 million, up 12% on 2008.

The operating income rose by 9% to €115.3 million.

The results of operating activities (EBIT) grew by 26.3% to €24 million, owing to cost-controlling efforts, amongst others. The EBIT margin increased from 18.8% in 2008 to 21.2%.

The results of operating activities after net finance costs rose by 20.8% to € 21.8 million. The financial results in 2009 are negatively influenced mainly by the results of conversions of receivables, debts and foreign currency credits at the closing rate per 31/12/2009, owing to higher debt costs and lower interest profits from working capital.

The consolidated profits increased by 22.3% to €14.9 million.

Duvel’s gross operational cash flow (EBITDA) rose by 15.5% to €35.6 million. The EBITDA margin grew from 30.5% to 31.5%.

In 2009, Duvel Moortgat’s activities abroad continued to gain importance. While the non-Belgian markets represented 15% of the consolidated turnover in 1999, they represented 45% in 2009. For the first time, turnover abroad exceeded the € 50 million mark. Turnover in the priority export markets ...More Info

Despite growth in India's beer consumption, there is little competition for United Breweries, or UB Group, and SABMiller, The Media Magazine posted on March, 23.

“Beer is the alcoholic drink of initiation,” says H. N. Kiran, research director, TNS India. “There are young drinkers, perhaps even below the legal age of their state. They drink beer with friends when parents are away.”

Indians are re-appraising the role of alcohol in everyday life, according to Kiran. “In the past, if a son was caught drinking, he would be reprimanded. Now, parents are fine with a college-age son having a beer with friends.”

Yet, for most Indians, beer is a rare indulgence. Per-capita annual income was US$831 last year. By local standards, beer prices are astronomical, primarily due to taxes, which vary from state to state. The cost of a glass of beer ranges from $0.51in Panaji to $1.83 in Channai, according to the voluntary data posted on pintprice.com. Euromonitor data shows a higher national average of $2.58 per litre.

Instead, working class Indians tend to turn to whisky - 99 per cent of it distilled domestically. In fact, populous India is the world’s largest whisky market. Or they rely on traditional rural brews such as ...More Info

Beer duty will increase by a further 5% from midnight on Sunday, Chancellor Alistair Darling announced on March, 24.

Duty on beer will increase by two per cent above inflation, as per the duty escalator. This will mean an overall rise of around five per cent, the Chancellor said.

The alcohol duty escalator was introduced in 2008, which means a two per cent above inflation rise on duties until 2012. The government previously said that along with rises in fuel duty this would raise £6bn.

The British Beer & Pub Association warned the latest hike would be bad news for the industry.

"This latest beer tax hike piles on the misery for Britain's hard-pressed pubs and beer lovers," said chief executive Brigid Simmonds.

"It is also a snub to voters, who by a majority of two to one wanted the Chancellor to scrap the beer tax escalator.

"Since 2008, beer tax has increased by an eye-watering 26 per cent – a £761 million tax rise - and we have seen the loss of 4,000 pubs and over 40,000 jobs up and down the country. Beer sales are down £650m in the last year alone.”

"Recently, there had been some signs of improvement in our ...More Info

Thai Beverage (ThaiBev) is aiming to boost the market share of its Federbrau premium beer in a move to increase its profits and further penetrate the beer market, The Nation reported on March, 23.

"We want to double the market share of Federbrau from the current 2 to 3 per cent to about 5 per cent this year. We are also aiming to increase its sales by about 20 per cent this year," Charlie Jitcharoongphorn, deputy managing director of Thai Beverage Marketing, said.

He added that ThaiBev hoped to increase the market share of Federbrau to 10 per cent in the next three years. The key customers of Federbrau are young urbanites aged 20-25 in the A and B socio-economic groups.

"All of our marketing activities are based on in-depth study of the brand DNA and its targeted customers," Charlie said. "According to the study, consumers of the Federbrau brand are adventurous, charming and playful."

Charlie said the premium beer segment accounts for only 4 per cent of the overall beer market in Thailand, worth nearly Bt100 billion. Heineken dominates more than 90 per cent of the premium beer market.

He added that the overall beer market had dropped by between 10 and 11 per ...More Info

Pre-agreed forward contracts for the supply of hops to the global giants of brewing could be stretched far longer than their original, mostly three-year, terms, Thomas Raiser, head of sales at hop supplier Barth-Haas, was quoted as saying by Brewers’ Guardian on March, 19.

The extension of the contracts may become the brewers’ and suppliers’ response to the falling demand for hops.

“We’re in the midst of negotiations about rolling some contracts’ quantities into future years, meaning some contracts could expire later [than next year]," Thomas Raiser is quoted as saying.

“This affects everybody who has contracted more hops than they need. It’s across the board, from the big global players, to the medium-sized players to the smaller craft brewers.”

According to Mr. Raiser, forward contracts are key to steadying the boom and bust cycle of recent years. In 2007 severe hop shortages pushed prices sky-high, prompting record acreage increases.

Today, prices have slumped and the market is in surfeit. Supplier Hopsteiner puts this year's surplus at around 2,700 tons of alpha acid. Joachim Gehde, MD of the firm's German operations, said: "We're in a situation where oversupply rules."

Last autumn some 500 acres of US hops were left un-harvested thanks to the depressed market, ...More Info

Czech hop growers harvested 6,616 tonnes of hops in 2009, down 2 percent year-on-year, according to the Agriculture Ministry's data published in the latest issue of the weekly Zemedelec.

The average yield stayed almost unchanged in year-on-year comparison, reaching 1.25 tonnes per hectare.

Despite the slight drop last year's harvest was the fourth best in 12 years. It could have been even better if it were not for windstorms and hailstorms in May and end-July which destroyed about 300 hectares of hop-fields.

After more than 10 years, the year 2008 saw a fundamental growth in hop growers' prices, the average price rising to Kc190,000 per tonne of dry hops.

The hop-field area in the Czech Republic decreased from 10,436 hectares in 1990 by nearly one half to last year's 5,307 hectares. Nearly one third of the hop-fields are older than 20 years.

Most of Czech hop production is exported, mostly to Japan, Germany, China, Russia and Britain.

The Czech Republic ranks third in the world in terms of hop fields, right behind Germany, the USA and China.

Dominik Szwajgier, Jacek Pielecki1 and Zdzisław Targoński

J. Inst. Brew. 111(4), 372–379, 2005 ABSTRACT
Ferulic acid, a very attractive natural antioxidant is present in beer in free form, but the main form is the bound form as feruloylated oligosaccharides. Previous research showed that feruloylated oligosaccharides more effectively inhibited lipid and Low Density Lipoprotein oxidation than free ferulic acid. The aim of the present study was to evaluate free and bound ferulic acid concentrations throughout the brewing process in experimental mashes (worts, beers during fermentation, maturation and storage), and to conduct a comparison in commercial beers. Another aim of the study was to investigate methods to increase levels of bound ferulic acid in beer due to the potential health benefits. Specifically, the influence of commercial enzyme preparations on both forms of ferulic acid contents was studied. Five commercial enzyme preparations during mashing were examined: Celluclast, Shearzyme, Viscozyme, Cereflo and Ultraflo. In all experimental beers, the concentrations of esterified ferulic acid were 4–6 fold higher than the corresponding free ferulic acid contents, depending on the enzyme preparation used. Ferulic acid contents in the ester form in experimental beers were in the range of 748.4 mg/hL to 1244.3 mg/hL, whereas the contents of free ferulic acid were in the range of 134.6 mg/hL to 275.2 mg/hL. Comparison of free and bound ferulic acid contents in experimental beers, produced using enzyme preparations and commercial beers found in a local market, showed that concentrations of bound ferulic acid in experimental beers were significantly higher than in commercial beers, whereas concentrations of free ferulic acid in experimental and commercial beers were comparable. Key words: Antioxidant, beer, ferulic acid, mashing, wort. Load full article, 8 pages, 562kb , PDF file