Ok, YOU may not like them but millions of people in Africa enjoy drinking maize or sorghum-based beverages, be they alcoholic or not. Because they have texture and a certain viscosity, many African consumers think these thickish, opaque and milkshake-type beverages a meal replacement. And often they are.

Let’s put it this way: You would be daft as a brewer not to try to take advantage of a sizeable and profitable beverage category especially if you consider yourself a total beverage company. For Diageo, Africa is the main driver to Diageo’s overall beer performance and is now its largest beer market, over twice the size of Ireland and Great Britain. In order to continue writing this success story Diageo/Guinness have been forced to innovate. If, like Diageo you sell everything from spirits to beer to RTDs, why not soft drinks too?

In the past financial year ended 30 June 2009, Guinness Nigeria, the country’s number two brewer, recorded a turnover of NGN 89 billion which represents an increase of 29 percent over the prior year and a trading profit of NGN 19.81 billion, an increase of 25 percent over the previous year. Earnings per share rose 14 percent to 918 Kobo. Profit before tax grew by 11 percent to NGN 19 billion up from NGN 17 billion.

Never mind the world economic crisis: beer consumption in Nigeria is going up. In 2008, Nigeria produced more than 15 million hl beer, up 15 percent on the previous year, says the Barth Report.

The ruling by the High Court in London has granted SABMiller an injunction which stops Kenya’s East African Breweries (EABL), which is majority-owned by Diageo, from purchasing Serengeti Breweries in Tanzania, which is the number two brewer behind SABMiller’s Tanzania Breweries (TBL).

Is a contract still worth the paper it is written on? Clever lawyers would tell you: “no”. Especially if the contract honours a gentlemen’s agreement not to bash each other’s heads in.

SA Breweries said their black staff and retailers would be issued with new shares worth about USD 750 million, funded through dividends over ten years.

The latest Cost of Living Survey by human resources consultancy ECA International says that decent Luanda apartments with water and electricity go for upwards of USD 15,000 (EUR 10,700) a month, a basic meal can top USD 100 easily and imported European cheese sells for over 15 dollars a piece.

The levy imposed on alcohol was implemented on 1 November 2008 after KBL and BBL withdrew their court case against the proposed measure.

In June, SABMiller hope to launch a commercial trial in Angola of a new formulation of its N’Gola brand - one that replaces maize with cassava, a locally grown root vegetable. SAB plans to use cassava – a rich form of starch – to brew a pilsener style lager using 60 percent barley and 40 percent cassava, it was reported.