Cranes busily bow against the backdrop of the Mt Lofty Ranges in Adelaide, South Australia. They herald that the construction of Australia’s newest state-of-the-art malthouse for Coopers, which is within a “bulls roar” of completion. The malthouse is a 55,000 t per annum, Bühler Group-designed and fabricated facility whose construction is being managed by the Ahrens Group, who previously assisted Coopers in the building of its Regency Park, Adelaide brewery 17 years ago and subsequent enhancements.

The IBD Convention will be held from 19 to 23 March 2018 in Wellington, New Zealand. The Convention Chairman will be Chris O’Leary of Emerson’s Brewery New Zealand and the Convention Organisers will again be ETM.

Is this the Wicked Weed effect? In order to avoid a consumer backlash and thus the fate of US craft brewer Wicked Weed, South Australian craft brewer Vale Brewing has decided to disclose the sad circumstances which have forced the owners to seek a sale.

Australia’s small and independent brewers voted on 18 May 2017 to bar corporate brewers from membership of their trade body. What was the Craft Beer Industry Association will be renamed as the Independent Brewers Association.

India’s beer and spirits tycoon VJ Mallya may enjoy the spring in London, but back home the Enforcement Directorate (ED), India’s investigating agency for economic crimes, has taken possession of his stake in United Breweries (UB) and also stakes in other listed companies, media said on 22 May 2017.

With craft brewers these days garnering all the laurels for being creative, experimental, in short close to geniuses when it comes to designing beers, it’s easily forgotten that the much disparaged Big Brewers have only managed to stay big because their R&D folks too have come up with new beers which sync with consumers.

Brewing Conference Bangkok

For the 4th time the Thailand Beer Industry Guild (TBIG) and the Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Brauerei in Berlin (VLB) [EV], Germany, are jointly organising the Brewing Conference Bangkok. This premium event takes place at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre (BITEC) in Bangkok, Thailand, from 11 to 13 June 2017.

That’s a clever workaround plan, literally. Following the ban on alcohol sales on and nearby highways as of 1 April 2017 in an effort to reduce road accidents, India’s hoteliers and restaurateurs ingeniously are trying various ways to increase the actual distance one would have to traverse to reach their premises. The methods involve changing entrances and building veritable mazes or zigzag passages to circumvent the ban.

Will this become the next must-have? The former Australian prime minister and world-record beer drinker had his own Hawke's Lager introduced in Sydney on 6 April 2017.

That’s an ambitious debt load. Following its purchases of SABMiller’s businesses in western and eastern Europe, Asahi will take on EUR 7.4 billion (USD 7.8 billion) in bank loans to fund the transactions, it was reported on 29 March 2017.