Tsingtao Brewery, China's best-known beer brand and No.2 brewer by volume, posted a 91.7 percent rise in second-half profit on rising beer sales and lower raw material costs, Reuters reported on April, 8.

The Chinese brewer said in the earnings statement that it aims to enlarge its market share and increase production volume in 2010 in an effort to tap the continuing recovery of the beer market in China.

Tsingtao said it had benefited from soft barley costs and a recovering beer consumption in China.

The Chinese brewer, in which Asahi Breweries holds more than 19 percent stake, said its July-December 2009 net profit rose to 610.22 million yuan ($78.6 million) from 318.4 million yuan a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations using data filed to the Shanghai stock exchange.

Full-year net profit was 1.25 billion yuan against 699.6 million yuan in 2008 (+ 79%).

In February, Tsingtao estimated that net profit for 2009 would rise 75-85 percent on efforts to cut costs, strengthen plant management, and improve brand integration and product mix.

Tsingtao said its sales volume rose 9.9 percent year-on-year to 59.1 hectolitres for the full year of 2009. Its sale volume rose 12.6 percent in the first half to 30.2 hectolitres.

Analysts are ...More Info

Czech Beer and Malt Association has said that beer output of its members dropped by 5.9 percent last year compared with 2008, CTK reported on April, 9.

Beer exports declined by more than 10 percent, showing the first year-on-year drop in the history of the Czech Republic.

Absolute figures, that will also include results of breweries which are not members of the association, should be available in July.

"The Czech beer industry has been hit by a drop in demand, just like other segments, although this is not true about all breweries," the association's head Jan Vesely said.

In the past several years, there has been a trend of a slow but lasting shift to quality beers, Vesely said.

Demand for draught beer decreased by around 10 percent last year. In contrast, demand for lagers recorded a slight growth of 0.3 percent.

Output of non-alcoholic beer decreased by 1 percent in 2009, which was the first drop in the past 10 years.

Consumers' shift from weaker to stronger beers was even bigger on the domestic market, according to the association.

Output of draught beer for the Czech market declined by 10 percent, while output of lagers grew by almost 5 percent compared with 2008.

Consumption of bottled beer fell ...More Info

Japan’s Asahi Breweries is is preparing to enter the Indian market. At the moment, the company is in the process of studying the market and liquor sales regulations in different states, The Financial Chronicle reported on April, 8.

“Asahi plans to open firm owned kiosks in luxury malls and hypermarkets. It hopes to start off with sale of beer and wine in select cities. They may also look at the option of forming joint ventures with domestic partners to enter the country,” Arvind Singhatiya, head of Franchise India’s international initiatives, said.

“They are studying the operations of foreign liquor brands here,” Singhatiya added.

The regulatory framework for selling alcoholic drinks in India is highly complicated and different states follow one among of the three types of sales - open, auction or government-controlled retail network. Asahi is looking at states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Goa, it is reported.

Latin America was the first of SABMiller's major beer markets to recover from the global economic downturn, while the U.S. brewing industry remains depressed, the company's CEO Graham Mackay was quoted as saying by Dow Jones on April ,7.

"Of all our major trading regions this is the one that was least affected and which recovered fastest," Mackay said.

The brewing industry is highly sensitive to changes in the economy, which is one reason why beer drinking in the sluggish U.S. economy is in decline, Mackay said.

"Beer is an affordable luxury, as we say. It's a drink of the working man, it's very closely correlated to employment."

The CEO refused to comment on whether the dramatic hike in sales tax on beer in Colombia would damage sales in the company's most important beer market in the world, and would not say if the company is lobbying to reverse the measure. In January, the Colombian government announced an increase in tax on beer to 14%, from 3%. The tax came into effect on Feb. 1, and the tax will rise again to 16% on Jan. 1, 2011.

Colombia is now SABMiller's "single most profitable beer market", according to Mackay, and second-largest market ...More Info

Germany’s malt output declined by 9.7% to 1.722 mln tonnes in 2009, industry observers communicated on April, 6.

The slowdown was 7% during the first half and 12.3% during the second half of the year.

In France production was reduced by 11.4% from July 2009 till January 2010.

In the U.K. the reduction was 14.5% during the same period, sources report.

Czech malt houses produced 500,387 tonnes of malt last year, which is a drop of 3.8 percent against 2008, the Czech Beer and Malt Association (CSPS) communicated on April, 8.

Nearly half of Czech malt or 239,000 tonnes were exported last year, reaching thus the second highest level in history.

Poland was traditionally the biggest importer of Czech malt, receiving nearly half of all exported malt.

Romania, Germany and Great Britain rank among other long-term importers of Czech malt. Japan registered the most dynamic rise in imports of Czech malt last year. Switzerland was the first country last year to import Czech malt.

Sladovny Soufflet CR is the largest Czech malt producer, contributing around 70 percent to the Czech production of malt and 95 percent to exports. One of its malt houses located in Nymburk, central Bohemia, produced 108,000 tonnes of malt, which was historically the highest amount produced by one malt house.

In 2008, Czech malt houses produced record 540,510 tonnes of malt, which was up by nearly 2.5 percent against 2007.

The crop year 2009/10 started with a huge unsalable surplus of malting barley, which depressed prices almost to levels of feed barley, industry analysts communicated earlier this week.

Most of the winter malting barley, and large amounts of spring barley were sold to the feed sector and to intervention. The large export business came unexpected. And there is a small quality problem after all, namely very low protein of large quantities of French spring barley, sources said.

Is it still right to speak of a carry-over of malting barley, which will cover the EU maltsters’ demand until December or January, reducing any demand of new crop barley to an eight months campaign? It must not be forgotten that maltsters will want to carry stocks from crop 2010 as well, because crop 2011 barley carries a premium of EUR 20,- per ton above crop 2010.

The demand for barley of crop 2010 is expected to be between 9 and 10, probably closer to 10 mln tonnes, analysts believe.

Total area planted to barley in France this year is expected to decline by 11.6% to 1.67 mln ha, the nation’s Ministry of Agriculture announced on April, 8.

According to the initial estimates, the marketing year 2010-2011 (July-June) will see the area under spring barley will shrink by 22.1% versus 2009, to 439,000 ha, the Ministry said.

France’s winter barley plantings will decrease by 7.2% to 1.23 mln ha.

Official forecasts set Canada’s and the US barley production at 9.5 mln tonnes and 5.0 mln tonnes respectively, however, private estimates and farmers announcements look different, an analysts’ note said earlier this month.

A lower acreage should be expected in both countries, experts said.

The Canadian Wheat Board shipped 240,000 tons of malting barley to China by end March, but the total program for the crop year seems to be above half a million tons.

South Africa and South America will receive between 2-300,000 tons. Present price levels are around US$250,- FOB Vancouver, the Canadian dollar is on par with the U.S. dollar.

Dr. Patrick BOIVIN

ABSTRACT Beer quality that is depending on the processes (malting and brewing) and raw materials is a very fragile product. The flavour quality of the beer decreases during the storage and the challenge for the breweries is to maintain a fresh flavour in their product for about 9 to 12 months. The T2N that is the major contributor of oxidised, is formed during malting and during brewing from milling to boiling by enzymatic and non enzymatic oxidation of lipids. Polyphenols from malt and hop that have antioxidant activities (inhibition of Lox-1 activity, metal chelating activity, and radical scavenging activity), contribute to improve the flavour stability of beer.
Cerevisia, 33(4) 2008 http://www.cerevisia.eu