The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed the call from the Brewers of Europe, a trade body, to end the discrimination for small European breweries exporting to the United States. The fifth round of talks between the EU and the United States on the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) began in Arlington, Virginia, on 19 May 2014.

Call it a journalist’s occupational hazard. Sometimes our stories don’t get written. Usually, it’s either because you cannot find enough sources to back up a juicy rumour, or because the story, when published, would immediately point to its whistleblower. In my line of work this has happened a few times. But never have I had to contend with the fact that political events beyond my control would wipe out months of research.

The civil war in the Ukraine is having its effect on global brewers. The world’s number four brewer Carlsberg was forced to issue a profit warning after it swung to a net loss in the first quarter, the brewer announced on 7 May 2014.

Despite rising sales during the first quarter, AB-InBev reported on 7 May 2014 that its net profit slumped by almost 24 percent. AB-InBev said net profit fell to USD 1.4 billion in the January through March period from USD 1.8 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

The last week in April 2014 launched a new fashion in corporate takeovers: the return of the “big deal”, as The Economist newspaper wrote on 30th April. We learnt that Pfizer and AstraZeneca, two drugmakers, Holcim and Lafarge, cement companies, and Publicis and Omnicom, advertising firms were planning to combine. Among other big deals (see table below), GE and Siemens are both bidding for Alstom, a French industrial rival. According to The Economist, there have been 15 transactions each worth more than USD 10 billion so far this year, the most since the record mergers & acquisitions rush of 2007.

When releasing first quarter 2014 figures on 24 April 2014, Heineken said it has returned to growth in its crucial Western Europe market in the first quarter, after a long period of stagnation. Organic sales - a figure which strips out the effects of currencies and acquisitions - grew by 3.4 per cent.

On 2 May 2014 media reported that Diageo, the world’s major drinks group, is holding talks to sell the Whyte & Mackay (W&M) spirits business to Alliance Global Group, a Philippines-based company which produces Emperador brandy.

After the sudden death of the chief of Oettinger Brewery, Dirk Kollmar, his previous co-executive directors will continue to run the company, Sales Manager Jörg Dierig said on 7 May 2014.

It is so unreal that we have lost Joep. The news came to us like a bolt from the blue. Joep was still so active during the recent 11th Trends in Brewing in Ghent. He was really happy to spend these days in the presence of brewers, maltsters and scientists.

The sowing of spring barley in Europe is on time and well advanced in many regions. Partly, most of the work was done by the end of March. In some regions, the acreage has been reduced significantly. Drought could also be a limiting factor in some places.