Is this a preemptive step to avoid being fined? Asahi Breweries will raise the wholesale price of beer delivered mainly to bars and restaurants by about ten percent in March 2018, the company’s first price hike since 2008, Japan’s media reported on 4 October 2017.

Japan’s Asahi Group Holdings said on 2 October 2017 that it plans to divest its interest in a beverage joint venture with Indonesia's Indofood, a unit of Salim Group, to refocus on its core alcohol business.

Asahi has massively overpaid for its Australian acquisitions. This is what observers say and what is underlined by its accounts. In September 2017 the Australian Financial Review (AFR) ran a piece, which argued that Asahi has racked up losses of AUD 1.13 billion (USD 877 million) in Australia during six years after slashing the value of goodwill by AUD 1.19 billion. This must be seen as an unofficial admission that it paid too much for drinks companies Schweppes and Independent Liquor in addition to massively overvaluing the brands it took on.

Almost exactly two years after the Melbourne craft brewer Mountain Goat sold itself to Asahi, AB-InBev through its ZX Ventures arm, took over the Sydney brewer 4 Pines. The deal was announced on 22 September 2017.

Given that 17,000 craft beer consumers took part in the Beer Cartel’s consumer survey, craft beer’s popularity must be on the increase still.

AB-InBev-owned Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) has said it is aiming to meet the growing demands of consumers who want to moderate their drinking, by reducing the ABV in some of its mid and low-strength beers.

Diageo, the world’s major drinks company and brewer of Guinness, has appointed AB-InBev to become the exclusive distributor in the Chinese mainland of Guinness, eyeing fast expansion of sales in the market, media reported on 28 August 2017.

Good craft beer in cans used to be an oxymoron like “airline food” or “English cuisine”. Not any longer. It has become the fastest growing trend in beer, thanks to craft brewers Pirate Life (Adelaide) and Balter (Gold Coast) actively pushing cans.

CBCE 2017 Shanghai

The Craft Beer China 2017 Conference and Exhibition took place in Shanghai from 17th to 19th May 2017. The exhibition was organized in cooperation with NürnbergMesse China and The Beer Link, Germany, and targeted mainly brewmasters, craft brewers and craft beer enthusiasts.

Nomen est omen. The women-run Sparkke Change Beverage Company from Adelaide, which has brought together some of Australia’s youngest brewers and winemakers, has two goals: to create great booze and trigger social change – not just in society at large but equally in the male-dominated alcohol industry.