Foreign brewers have been hit hardest, but beverage manufacturers have been bruised too by Russia’s economic woes. On 2 March 2015 it was reported that both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling are closing one plant each in Russia, citing a plunge in the value of the Russian ruble and the country’s slide into recession.

If “vegan” is the new organic, are “alcohol-free bars” the new speakeasies? People’s relationship with alcohol has changed and the pub operators of the future will need to adapt their businesses to cater for it, said Catherine Salway, founder of the dry “gastro-bar” concept Redemption, at the Future Pub conference in London on 24 February 2015.

Krones AG, Neutraubling, Germany, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of beverage filling and packaging technology, has acquired 100 % of the shares in Schaefer Förderanlagen- und Maschinenbau GmbH, Unterföhring, Germany.

On 19 February 2015 Dutch brewer Heineken pumped EUR 131.5 million into its Belgian subsidiary Alken-Maes. That is the result of an internal liquidation of some inactive distribution companies, and is not the result of operational developments, Belgian media reported.

Because of the deafening outcry among craft beer lovers in the U.S. over AB-InBev’s recent purchases of U.S. craft brewers, AmBev’s purchase of Brazilian craft brewer Wäls barely registered on the takeover “excitetometer”.

A “brewer without a brewery” was taken over: The Belgian investment company Gimv has acquired United Dutch Breweries (UDB), together with UDB’s management, from the Dutch investment company Egeria, it was reported on 27 February 2015.

The alcohol escalator is causing grief. As of 1 January 2015 the Swedish government hiked the excise on beer to SEK 1.94 per litre for each degree of alcohol. That’s an increase of SEK 0.16. The tax applies to beer in excess of 2.8 % ABV.

Thank goodness, there was the Football World Cup in 2014. Its effects made Heineken’s group revenues rise 0.1 percent to EUR 21.2 billion, the brewer reported on 11 February 2015.

Would the Kremlin know or care that its politics made a Danish CEO lose heart? Carlsberg announced on 18 February 2015 that its CEO Joergen Buhl Rasmussen, 59, will retire on 15 June this year and be replaced by Cees ’t Hart amid reports of a weakening Russian ruble plus declining beer sales in Russia and the Ukraine, which led to a sharp drop in the brewer’s fourth-quarter profits.

What’s become of Pippi Longstocking? In case you are not watching Scandi noir TV series, you would not know that there are only two kinds of Swedish women around: grumpy female cops or anxious female victims.