The Brewers Association may boast that craft beer exports are growing by double digits, but on close inspection one can see which brands are actually benefitting from foreign markets’ pull: they are AB-InBev’s “crafty brands”. Last year already its Goose Island beers were sitting prominently on Dutch and Belgian supermarket shelves.

The 40th anniversary of the introduction of the Jacob’s Creek range by Orlando Wines in 1976 was marked by a feature in the Adelaide press which related the history of this now very popular Australian brand.

In 2016, Lehui celebrates its 25th anniversary. Over the last 25 years, the company has become one of Asia’s leading brewing and beverage equipment manufacturers, supplying their customers with high quality equipment and turn key solutions. It provides the full life cycle services to the industry, including planning, consulting, design, civil works, manufacturing, systems integration, project management, installation, commissioning, training, commercial production and more.

Trust Australian journalists to go snooping after Lion’s figures as soon as the market-leading local brewer submits its financial results with the corporate regulator. On 26 January 2015 media revealed that the Lion-Heineken joint venture suffered a 16 percent fall in annual profits in its latest financial year (ended 30 September 2015) as net profit after tax dropped to AUD 10.5 million (USD 7.5 million) from AUD 12.5 million a year earlier. However, sales increased 2.5 percent to AUD 67.4 million (USD 47.7 million) in the financial year 2015.

Same procedure every year. The announcement of annual beer production figures in Vietnam is usually accompanied by a bit of cacophony from the nomenklatura, some calling for further privatisations of the state-owned breweries with others reject such claims.

Oh Lordy, how many changes in ownership can the brewer CUB take? Until 2011 CUB was part of Foster’s, which then sold it to SABMiller for AUD 12.3 billion (almost USD 12 billion in those days).

Hopped ciders are supposedly “tasty as hell”. In South Australia, the Hills Cider Company released its Hop Edition cider (8% ABV) in bottles, following a few small batch releases in keg. Made with fresh Adelaide Hills apples and – probably dry-hopped – with a blend of Cascade, Chinook, Summer, Citra and Galaxy hops, the “fusion displays upfront pineapple, citrus and tropical fruit aromatics, with subtle apricot, melon, pink grapefruit and citrus flavours,” Hills Cider’s Steve Dorman was quoted as saying. “The astringency of the hops balances the sweetness of the fresh apples, to create a fresh, crisp and fruit driven cider … with the ever growing popularity of hopped cider styles in USA and an increasingly educated craft beer and cider market here in Australia, we thought this would be a very exciting addition to the Australian craft cider category,” he said.

The death of William T (Bill) Cooper at the age of 82 on 11 November 2015 after a long illness is noted with sincere regret. Bill, the father of current Managing Director Dr Tim Cooper, joined the family-owned Coopers brewery in 1960 and was responsible for Marketing and Sales from 1965 to 1985, and, in addition, became Director and Secretary in 1969. He was appointed Managing Director in 1977, a position he held until retiring in January 2002, and remained a Director until 2009 when he was replaced by his daughter, Melanie, who became the first woman on Coopers’ board.

Brewforce is an Indian-based company which has been delivering process and engineering equipment and solutions to breweries and distilleries for 35 years now. Regarding know-how and equipment, they are supported by their German partner Brewforce Brautechnik GmbH.

The privately-owned Coopers Brewery from Adelaide defied falling Australian beer consumption, increased pressure on margins and higher malt prices to achieve record beer sales and revenues for its financial year 2014/15.