Net profit at Dutch brewer Heineken fell by more than half last year to EUR 1.36 billion (USD 1.85 billion), the company reported on 12 February 2014, as growth in emerging markets had fallen short of expectations.

The latest online craze of “nekNomination” has doctors sounding the alarm around the world. Chugging beer is not a new concept, but nekNomination is a game that combines social media, peer pressure and drinking. It involves someone being filmed in underwear downing a beer in one, then nominating other people by name to do the same within 24 hours. The videos are posted and shared online.

It’s one of those rumours that seem too far-fetched to be true, but the Italian brewing industry has been abuzz with speculation for a few weeks that SABMiller will exit Italy and sell most of its Birra Peroni assets to AB-InBev.

Tu felix Austria? No longer. Like some of their German counterparts, two Austrian brewers have been engaged in some illegal hanky-panky. On 30 January 2014 the Austrian Cartel Court fined two small brewers for vertical collusion with the retailers. Total fines were EUR 252,000 Euro. Villacher Bier has to pay EUR 195,000 and Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg EUR 57,000, it was reported.

This is political activism with a twist. On the occasion of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia’s Sochi, the fearless Scottish brewer BrewDog has launched a beer in early February 2014 called “Hello, my name is Vladimir”.

Who they? And why would they even consider going to the stock-market? The

Since they could not get the Cuervo tequila brand, they bought two others instead. In January 2014, Diageo, the world’s major drinks company, added two super-premium brands to its portfolio.

In January 2014, five German brewers were fined a total of EUR 106.5 million for collusion in 2006 and 2008. Several more are under investigation by the Federal Cartel Office. Strangely enough, Germans still enjoy what must be the lowest prices for beer in Europe. Given that retail prices have actually declined over the past decade, many wonder what the real purpose of the beer cartel was since it failed to achieve a cartel’s primary goal.

Given that AB-InBev in 2013 sold about 42 million hl of Budweiser, it sounds a bit preposterous that the Czech state-owned brewery Budejovicky Budvar, which has been fighting a long legal battle with Anheuser-Busch and now AB-InBev over the use of the “Budweiser” brand, boasted in early January 2014 that its overall output and exports reached a new high in 2013.

The Scottish brewery BrewDog managed to raise GBP 4.25 million (USD 6.9 million) in six months in a record-breaking crowd-funding scheme, the company announced on 23 December 2013. That was one month earlier than planned.