Keroche Breweries has become east Africa’s newest beer maker, launching three brands on 24 October 2008. The brands – Summit Lager, Summit Malt and a yet-to-be-named "black" beer, will compete with East African Breweries’ Tusker Lager, Tusker Malt and Guinness respectively. Until the entry of Keroche, EABL was Kenya’s sole large-scale brewer.

Grolsch, Dreher - who cares that they aren’t exactly Germanic in heritage? To the discerning South African consumers these brands are the closest they will get to an old-time Germanic beer brand, although Grolsch is Dutch and Dreher Hungarian.

One way to conceal defeat: join your opponent. That’s what Germany’s Warsteiner brewery has done. Failing to get its Cameroonian brewery off the ground, the privately owned Warsteiner brewery decided to form a joint venture with its competitor Groupe Castel, whose Cameroonian subsidiary controls almost 80 percent of the domestic beer market.

Although a court declared Pabod Breweries’ bottle not to infringe upon the Star bottle design, Star’s parent, Nigerian Breweries (NBL), which is controlled by Heineken, has decided not to let matters rest but to lodge an appeal against the verdict. The court has adjourned the matter until 23 October 2008. The upstart Pabod Breweries whose launch has been held back because of Nigerian Breweries’ actions by more than half a year, has suffered significant losses yet remains upbeat.

Norman Adami, previously President and CEO of SABMiller Americas, will return to SABMiller to assume the position of Managing Director and Chairman of SAB Ltd in South Africa. Tony van Kralingen, who currently holds this position, has been persuaded to sidestep. He will become Director of Human Resources and Supply Chain for the group.

The Egyptian Tourist Federation has announced it will shortly strip the Hyatt hotel of its five-star status, following the decision by its renegade Saudi owner to ban the sale of alcohol on its premises.

Amstel it ain´t. But it´s Dutch and that is all that counts. From the end of June Grolsch will be available nationally in on and off premises.

The resurrected Pabod Breweries scored a victory over its rival Nigerian Breweries (NBL) when on 30 June 2008 a Rivers State court ruled that NBL´s injunction over Pabod´s use of a contested bottle could not be upheld.

In a stunning display of religious orthodoxy, the Saudi owner of a five-star hotel in Cairo in May banned the serving of alcohol by reportedly dumping more than USD 300,000 of beer, wine and whiskey into the river Nile.

Apparently, Heineken does not want to take on SABMiller on its own. That’s why it has partnered with Diageo to build a brewery south of Johannesburg.