World’s No. 2 brewer SABMiller plc plans to bid for a 12.25% stake in Chongqing Brewery Co, which is currently 17.46%-owned by Carlsberg Group, the Economic Observer reported on April, 16, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter as saying.

Last week, Chongqing Beer (Group) Co, the largest shareholder of Chongqing Brewery, said that it plans to sell 59.30 million shares, or a 12.25% stake, in Chongqing Brewery, adding that domestic and overseas bidders should submit bidding documents within in ten working days after the announcement.

SABMiller, the London-based brewer, holds a 49% stake in China Resources Snow Breweries.

Shanghai-listed Chongqing Brewery sold 1 million kiloliters of beer last year, 2.11% more than in 2008. The company's net profit attributable to shareholders rose 10.91% year on year, hitting RMB 181 million and operating revenue was RMB 2.26 billion, up 6.56% from a year earlier, according to an earlier report from China Knowledge.

In 2010, the brewery aims to sell 1.12 million kL to reap RMB 2.59 billion in operating revenue. Capital expenditure could reach RMB 1.49 billion.

Beijing Yanjing Brewery recorded operating revenue and net profit of 2.087 billion yuan and 30.76 million yuan in the first quarter of this year, NetEase cited a company filing on April, 20.

The brewer’s operating revenue and net profit thus grew by 10.32 percent and 26.54 percent respectively year-on-year.

The company sold 940,000 kiloliters of beer in the first quarter, of which its own products accounted for 890,000 kiloliters, an increase of 5.95 percent year-on-year.

At the beginning of the financial and economic crisis brewers, especially the large groups, reduced both stocks and purchase contracts sharply, an analysts’ research note posted earlier this month reminds.

Brewers had to cope with lower disposable incomes of consumers, with higher beer taxes in a number of countries, with anti-smoking laws, and a continuing trend towards wine and other beverages in the richer countries.

Statistics show that beer sales dropped less than malt purchases by brewers: Japan, China, Russia and Ukraine are the extreme examples of reducing malt input in beer, for different reasons and with different replacements.

China’s malt basis of beer is about 7 kilos/hl, Russia reduced its malt input by at least 50% and brews a number of beers exclusively with raw barley and enzymes.

All over the world usage of malt substitutes has increased, most often to the detriment of beer quality.

Recently Euromalt, the European maltsters’ association, and Pilsner Urquell, the No. 1 brewer of the Czech Republic, have protested the continuing change of the product “beer” to an unspecific drink, and asked for legal help to protect the “real beer”, which is not exclusively, but mainly brewed of malt, water, hops and yeast.

Jiří Čulík, Marie Jurková, Tomáš Horák, Pavel Čejka, Vladimír Kellner, Josef Dvořák, Pavel Karásek and Michal Roth

J. Inst. Brew. 115(3), 220–225, 2009
ABSTRACT
The EBC method 7.7, currently used for determination of bitter acids in hop products, is a time-consuming and laborious extraction technique. In this paper, our aim was to propose a new extraction method based on Pressurized Solvent Extraction (PSE) sometimes also called Pressurized Fluid Extraction (PFE) or Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE). Compared to conventional extractions, PSE offers a number of important benefits. PSE on OnePSE® automated extractor was used for extraction of ?- and ß-acids from hops and hop products and the parameters influencing extraction efficiency and the influence of the sample preparation method were studied. The quantitative determination of ?- and ß-acids in the extracts was accomplished by using an HPLC apparatus equipped with diode array detector. The experimental results were compared with those obtained by the standard EBC 7.7 method and the two methods were found to be fully compatible Key words: analysis, bitter acids, hops, hop products, pressurized solvent extraction, PSE. Load full article, 6 pages, 211kb , PDF file