Statistics for 2008 indicate that New Zealand ranks 16th among the world’s beer markets with 75.5 litres of beer per capita consumed in 2008, down from 90.5 litres in 1996.

The deal between Sapporo and Pokka, if completed in September, could go down in history as two drunks propping each other up pretending to be sober.

In his widely circulated research note “Buy … It’s Time”, Mr Errington expressed his belief that Foster’s is now "heavily undervalued" because of tentative signs of a turnaround in the global wine industry and continued strong performance of its beer business.

The largest brewpub in Asia is open for business

At the beginning of January 2008, another brewpub officially opened in South-East Asia – “Holland Beer” in the south of the city of Bangkok. This report gives an overview of planning, construction time and construction details.

Thai microbrewery hosts brewers’ get-together

The 20-something guests were being served a beer with a perfect two-fingers head. The waiters, all of them brewers of the microbrewery, worked incredibly fast – due to the personal training by brewmaster Karl Josef Eden himself. The undisputable highlight of the evening was a show by the „Country Place Show Girls“ – quite a national legend consiting of six dancing beauties.

In 2007 the global beer market had risen to just under 1.8 billion hectolitres (hl), mainly due to increased sales in the newly industrialized countries. Just under half of the total increase of 91 million hl at that time was accounted for by China, the nation that has produced the most beer every year since 2002, and this took its share of global beer production to 22 percent. Other countries with high rates of increase in production were Russia, Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Suntory, Asahi and Kirin: These three companies are quite similar to one another and share a common heritage. Each of them has total sales of about USD 15 billion (or less); each of them has a top three brewing business in Japan; and each of them has diversified into other alcohol drinks, soft beverages and food products, in an effort to cope with Japan’s declining beer market (15% over the past decade).

But first things first. What do you call Kirin and Suntory?

This is the second reduction in alcohol in two years, presumably aimed at keeping retail price levels.

The two majors, along with Lion Nathan and Australian Vintage, report significant decreases in winery assets. Lion Nathan said its wine operations, which were much smaller than the beer operations, had profitability affected by the economic environment in the U.S., Britain and Australia. For the six months to 31 March 2009 the wine division’s EBIT fell 55.7 percent to AUD 3.5 million.