Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Berhad (Carlsberg Malaysia) said on May, 27 its net profit reached RM38.1 million in the 3 months ended 31 March 2010, which represents an improvement of 76.5 per cent over the corresponding quarter in the previous year.

Revenue of RM378.5 million for the same quarter was 30.6 per cent higher than the quarter in the previous year. The higher revenue was mainly due to the later timing of the 2010 Chinese New Year as well as the consolidation of the revenue of its newly acquired subsidiary Carlsberg Singapore Pte Ltd, the brewer said.

Earnings per share of 12.38 sen per ordinary share for the quarter under review was 76.8 per cent higher than last year.

“We are very pleased with the performance in the 1st quarter 2010 where our strategy for growth in the domestic market with a more robust brand portfolio as well as in the Singapore market is delivering the expected results.” Mr Soren Ravn, Managing Director commented.

The $100 billion US beer industry has seen sales for nearly a dozen of the largest brands drop during the four weeks ending May 16, Advertising Age said on May, 31, citing the research company SymphonyIRI.

Only four of the top 30 brands — Keystone Light, Modelo Especial, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Yuengling — registered upticks, it is reported.

Meanwhile, despite massive measured-media support, category titans Bud Light, Coors Light and Miller Lite all declined.

"I've never seen so much red ink on a spreadsheet in all my years in this business," said Harry Schuhmacher, publisher of Beer Business Daily, of the figures, which account only for food, drug and convenience stores. "It's really disconcerting."

Industry shipments are down 4%, according to the Beer Institute. Several factors play into the trend, key among them the recession. MillerCoors Chief Marketing Officer Andy England said that unemployment remains particularly pronounced among the 21- to 35-year-old men who are the primary targets of beer companies, and also among Hispanics, another key segment. In many cases, they're opting for cheaper brews, or saving their consumption for a special occasion by splurging on craft-style beers. As a result, the "premium" lights are being squeezed by moves in both ...More Info

China’s Chongqing Brewery will distribute cash dividends of 0.3 yuan/share for the 2009 fiscal year, Capital Vue cited a company filing on June, 2.

Cash dividends will be delivered on June 18. The company predicts it will pay out a total of 145.191 million yuan based on 483.971 million outstanding shares.

Shares of Chongqing Brewery were down 3.92 percent to trade at 34.54 yuan at 13:36 pm on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on June, 2.

Australian grain handler and marketer GrainCorp believes there may be further opportunities to expand its malt business, which was the main contributor to a 63% increase in the company’s first half net profit, Afr.com cited the interim chief executive Ian Wilton on May, 27.

GrainCorp’s acquisition of United Malt Holdings was completed on November 13, 2009.

“We believe the current malt market conditions, while unsettling for investors, may lead to opportunities for further investment in the sector,” Mr. Wilton is quoted as saying.

“Despite the global financial downturn, the international beer and scotch whisky markets continue to grow albeit at rates lower than prior to the global financial crisis,” he said.

“Demand remains strong in South-east Asia and South America – two key markets for our malt sales.”

Mr. Wilton said GrainCorp’s malt sales volumes were on budget, and remained on track across all the company’s markets.

“Of particular note is the craft brew market in North America, which has continued to grow despite the global financial downturn.”

The company’s malt sales volume forecast remained at 920,000 - 950,000 tonnes.

UK’s Malting Barley Committee provided on May, 28 an update to the list of malting barley varieties it recommends for harvest 2010.

With the increased requirement for grain distilling malt it is necessary to identify barleys which are recommended for the different distilling purposes, the Committee said. The outcome was the promotion of Concerto to Full Approval for brewing and malt distilling use, the promotion of Forensic to Provisional Approval 2 for malt and grain distilling use, and the promotion of Purdey, Winsome and Propino to Provisional Approval 1 for brewing use.

There were no removals from the Approved list though Cocktail had been removed after the autumn 2009 meeting.

The malting barley varieties with a full approval for brewing use are: Pearl, Flagon, Cassata (winter); Optic, NFC Tipple, Quench Westminster, Concerto (spring). The varieties with provisional approval 1 are the winter varieties Purdey and Winsome and the spring variety Propino.

C. E. Wallin, M. B. DiPietro, R. W. Schwarz and C. W. Bamforth

J. Inst. Brew. 116(1), 78–80, 2010
ABSTRACT
Three methods for measuring foam stability were assessed using nine different beers. The methods were the NIBEM instrument of Haffmans, the device marketed by Steinfurth and the manual procedure developed by Constant. There were reasonable-togood correlations when the foam stability of all the beers, as determined by the individual methods, were compared one with another. However when individual beers were studied, it appeared that different techniques rank them in somewhat different sequences. All of the methods demonstrated the superior foam stability of examined ales over lagers, however there were some differences in ranking of beer foam quality, in particular with the beers bittered with reduced iso-a-acids, which performed better when assessed by methods that quantified the foam itself, rather than drainage. Key words: comparison, foam, instrument, manual method, ranking. Load full article, 3 pages, 236 kb , PDF file