Heineken to close Kaltenhausen brewery (not quite)
Brau-Union seems to be a great believer in shunting its beer around the country: having it produced in one place and bottled in another. The announced closure of the Kaltenhausen brewery represents just another affirmation of this strategy as in the course of the next year the production of the Edelweiß wheat beer will be transferred to Brau-Union’s Zipfer Brewery, where it is already being packaged, while production of the Kaiser brand will be relocated to the Wieselburger brewery.
According to Austrian media reports, the brewmaster Günther Seeleitner said that the new Kaltenhausen innovation centre will be devoted to the training of specialists in brewing and gastronomy and will showcase an “innovations brewery”.
The innovations brewery will be located in the brewery’s tap room - which to us translates into Brau-Union setting up a brewpub-type operation. There they will brew “international specialities” and novelty products, Mr Seeleitner was reported as saying.
In 2009, Austria’s brewers produced 8.7 million hl beer, down 200,000 hl from 2008 (according to the Barth Report). Brau-Union’s output dropped 6.2 percent while the market declined less than 3 percent. Its market share has suffered accordingly: it now stands at 48 percent, according to Brau-Union’s General Director Markus Liebl, down from 53 percent in 2004.
Mr Liebl said in March this year that Brau-Union’s volume loss has to be attributed to Brau-Union exiting from cheap beer production. The brewer’s revenues in 2009 rose slightly to EUR 509 million, or over EUR 600 million, if you include excise duties of EUR 93 million.
In September last year, Brau-Union sold its 13.4 percent stake in Vienna’s Ottakringer Brewery, which Brau-Union had held for 11 years. Brau-Union has never denied that it would have liked to raise its stake. However, the majority shareholders, the families Wenckheim, Menz, Pfusterschmid and Trauttenberg, refused to sell. Ottakringer has 200 employees and EUR 80 million in turnover. Brau-Union’s stake would have been worth EUR 17 million, market observers say, but both parties agreed not to disclose the price of the transaction.
