Germany’s major brewer Radeberger suffered a defeat in court over its dodgy bottle deposit dealings with its Mexican import Corona Extra. On 19 December 2012 a Frankfurt court told Radeberger it had to pay the claimant, Deutsche Umwelthilfe (German Environmental Aid DUH), the cease-and-desist fee of EUR 243,43 (USD 323). As the fine is so small, Radeberger has no right to appeal against the ruling.

It’s probably more a case of piqued national pride than a real loss that has caused an outcry in Austrian media, following Heineken’s decision on 13 January 2013 to relocate its central and eastern european (CEE) headquarters from Vienna to Amsterdam.

It seems the UK taxpayer has taken yet another massive hit. On 4 January 2013 Admiral Taverns, one of the UK’s biggest pub groups, has been bought by U.S. based private equity group Cerberus in a fire sale. The Lloyds Banking Group, which had to be bailed out by the UK government to the tune of a 40 percent stake, reportedly received about GBP 50 million in cash for its pubs. Add to that the GBP 150 million that Cerberus took on in debt, the transaction is valued at GBP 200 million (USD 323 million) or a little over GBP 180,000 (USD 290,000) per pub.

Beer sales in Germany in November 2012 dropped 2.8 percent year-on-year and reached 7.26 million hl. In the January to November period, 89.4 million hl beer were sold. That’s a loss of one percent over the same period in 2011.

Given that Heineken is going to focus on its beer and cider brands, it was just a matter of time before it would sell its premium juice brand Pago. On 19 December 2012 the Heineken-owned Brau Union signed an agreement with Pago’s bigger German rival Eckes-Granini which will lead Pago to change hands during the first quarter of 2013.

SABMiller, Starbucks, Amazon and Google – the list of companies given a serve over their skillful ways of avoiding tax payments in the UK is getting longer.

You win some, you lose some. Diageo, the world’s number one drinks company, may have been successful at clinching a USD 2.1 billion deal for a majority stake in India’s largest spirits company, United Spirits, in November 2012, but ultimately failed to secure a takeover of Jose Cuervo, the world’s top-selling tequila brand, which is to stay with its Mexican owners, the Beckmann family.

That’s the question AB-InBev, the present owner of the Budweiser beer brand, asked its Czech rival, the state-owned brewery Budweiser Budvar. The dispute over the Budweiser trademark has been raging for over 100 years and AB-InBev seems to have been keen on settling the issue once and for all.

All protests were in vain: the French parliament on 3 December 2012 approved a bill to hike French beer tax by a massive 160 percent. Despite best efforts by the French Senate, twice sending the law back to the Parliament with a modest amendment to raise excise by only 120 percent – the law was finally passed without further modifications and will come into effect in January 2013.

That’s some optimistic extrapolation: if they drink lots of beer, they will eventually drink wine too. No doubt, Mexico, Brazil, Poland and Nigeria sport comparatively high beer consumption rates. But to what extent consumers in these markets can be swayed towards wine remains to be seen.