It was to be expected. With the loss of some licensed brands like Stella Artois and Carlsberg, Foster’s owner SABMiller took a long hard look at its production site at Abbotsford near Melbourne and decided to shut down one of its seven production lines by October this year. This will lead to loss of 33 jobs, hopefully through voluntary redundancies.

Phew – no bidding war. After only two weeks of deliberations, on 3 August 2012 Fraser & Neave’s board of directors recommended Heineken’s USD 4.1 billion offer for its 40 percent stake in Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) to shareholders, the Amsterdam-based brewer said in a statement. Heineken already owns a 42 percent stake in APB.

Heineken’s USD 4.1 billion offer to buy Singapore’s Fraser & Neave (F&N) out of the Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) joint venture altogether may have been fired from the hip, but what could they do?

Indian beer producers could not have asked for more: Amidst the global economic doom and gloom and a slowing Indian economy, when the talk of a grimmer economic situation was pervasive around the country, an extended and unusual Indian summer has helped the Indian beer producers to achieve one of the highest sales during the peak beer consuming months (March – June) in India.

Casella Wines, the family-owned winery whose Yellow Tail wine label rose from scratch to become the most popular imported wine in the U.S. in almost no time, has moved into beer with the mid-June launch of two beers: Arvo 34 and Arvo 51.

KHS GmbH, an internationally manufacturer of packaging and filling systems, is divesting itself of its 70 percent majority holding in the Chinese joint venture Guangdong Light Industry Machinery No. 2 Plant Co., Ltd (GLM2). The shares, which were purchased in 2006, will be sold back to the minority shareholders. Spare parts and service for machines, lines and systems from the GLM2 joint venture will continue to be provided by GLM2. In future, KHS intends to have certain system parts for glass lines in the low and medium capacity range manufactured under contract at GLM2. According to KHS, the production facility which was set up at the same time in the Indian city of Ahmedabad with an area of 25 000 m² serves the Asian market very successfully and profitably..

Anyone into threesomes? Apparently, naughty Tsingtao is wanting to pull Japan’s Suntory into its bed while Asahi is fearing it will have to relinquish the pillow. That’s the more colourful interpretation of what is currently happening at Tsingtao, China’s number two brewer, in which Asahi has a 20 percent stake.

It’s a hoot – if you can see the funny side of it. The City authorities of Mumbai announced in early June 2012 that they would enforce the archaic Bombay

There is always some reason in madness. On 18 June 2012, in a surprise announcement, brewer Lion confirmed an agreement with the board of Little World Beverages (LWB) to acquire, by way of a Scheme of Arrangement, the 64 percent of shares in LWB it does not already own. The deal values LWB, a craft beer brewer, best known for its brand Little Creatures, with an estimated annual output of 80,000 hl beer, at about AUD 380 million (EUR 312 million) which is plenty of dosh.

After Carlsberg established a presence in India, the world’s largest brewer, AB-InBev, is now also planning a new bottling plant there. The Belgian brewing giant wants to consolidate its presence in India, in order to reduce the taxes it pays, at least in the one state where it plans to open its new facility.