Beware of their pitchforks. The Swedish Farmers’ Association LRF has filed a complaints notification with the EU commission against the ban of cellar door sales in Sweden, local media reported on 18 September 2014.

Looks like the going will get a lot tougher as the Polish beer market turns mature. Brewer Zywiec, the Polish unit of Dutch brewer Heineken, will spin off a unit responsible for sales and distribution to small retailers and hospitality clients, Zywiec said in a market filing on 26 September 2014.

What’s that supposed to mean? On Sunday 14 September 2014 Bloomberg news agency reported that, according to rumour, the world’s number two brewer SABMiller had approached the world’s number three, Heineken, with a takeover offer.

In many respects, Sweden must be the most libertarian country in the world – but not when it comes to alcohol. Many of the rules and regulations in place to control (read: limit) the consumption of alcohol would have to be called ridiculous if the whole matter were not so critical.

Diageo’s long saga of building a brewery in Ireland drew to a close on 10 September 2014 when it opened its new EUR 169 million state-of-the-art brewery at its old site at St James’s Gate in Dublin.

It’s a rumour only, but further consolidation of the Czech beer market would make sense. Czech media reported on 9 September 2014 that Heineken is in talks about selling its Czech operations to Molson Coors.

Wheat beers have long enjoyed the highest prices for beer in Germany. They are the measure of how much Germans are prepared to pay for beer at the most. Now that AB-InBev is heavily discounting its national wheat beer brand Franziskaner, German brewers fear the whole price architecture for beer will collapse.

On 2 September 2014, the Hamburg based GlobalMalt Group announced the complete acquisition of GlobalMalt Polska, Bydgoszcz, by Tivoli Malz GmbH. The acquisition was completed in order to continue the further development of the Group. After the acquisition of the minority stake of 40% last week which Polskie Mlyny had been holding since 2008 Tivoli Malz GmbH (Tivoli) is now the sole shareholder of its Polish subsidiary GlobalMalt Polska Sp. Z o.o.

You’d have thought that Carlsberg was merely one of several international companies doing business in eastern Europe – but now the brewer seems to have become the test case for how European companies are going to be affected by the new chill between Russia and the West.

What’s the big news here? Bars and restaurants have always had various discount schemes – think Happy Hour – to bring punters through their doors. And why does BrewDog only allow students to benefit from the discount? Why not senior citizens too? They are usually hard up too.