Is the end near for more than one third of pubs and bars in the UK? According to research by R3, an insolvency trade body, which was released on 26 September 2012, 34 percent of bars and pubs have been identified as “at risk of failure” in the next 12 months.

Two brewers, Heidi Beers and Brewdog, are the recipients of Scottish government grants awarded to a total of 32 companies under the latest rounds of food and drink funding. On 15 September 2012, it was announced that Heidi and BrewDog have been given grants totalling GBP 2.4 million to help them relocate production to Scotland.

The beer wars between the Association of Basle Publicans and the country’s major brewers Carlsberg and Heineken have entered a new stage. In May 2012, the Basle publicans began self-importing Carlsberg beer. As of September 2012, they will also self-import Heineken to protest against the brewers’ wholesale prices for draught beer.

When Carlsberg announced at the end of 2011 that it was establishing in Switzerland a centralised supply organisation for Europe, incorporating group procurement, supply chain and logistics functions, Swiss officials rubbed their hands. The small country in the heart of Europe has received so much bad press lately because of its banks that Carlsberg’s decision was most welcome, as it signalled that Switzerland still bested the rest of Europe when it comes to low corporate taxes.

Beer price hikes are a non-issue but this has not stopped Belgian media from making them an issue. For several years now, it’s been like this in Belgium. Preparing for the long summer months, when the business of politics grinds to a halt, hacks will go through their archives, wondering if there is some kind of staple issue that could be taken up again to fill their pages and TV hours with news. What do they invariably discover? The issue of higher beer prices. There may be nothing to this story but this does not prevent journalists from doggedly pursuing it.

Whose figures do you trust more? Carlsberg reported that the Russian beer market grew 2 percent in the first six months of 2012 while Russian media said that beer consumption was down 0.3 percent to 51.8 million hl year-on-year. Be that is it may, there is worse to come. Beer consumption is expected to drop sharply in the first quarter of 2013, when beer sales by kiosks will be banned, while excise duties will go up 33 percent.

The working conditions of "beer girls", euphemistically called "beer promoters", are a disgrace. Although NGOs have long criticised how beer girls are being exploited, especially in Asia but also in Africa, it has taken Carlsberg and the Danish trade unions until this August to come to some sort of agreement on how to better work together to materially improve the conditions of beer promoters in Cambodia.

In Europe, the expected amount of spring barley will most likely exceed last year’s amount. Beside the expansion of acreage, first results of yield and quality in some countries are good at the end of July, although the crop in regions with heavy rain are not nearly as far developed. In East Europe, the barley was affected by drought.

The competition, widely dubbed the ‘brewing Oscars’, returned to Burton-upon-Trent last year, attracting over 800 entries. As a firmly established ‘must enter’ for many brewers around the world, we are determined to make 2013s event an even greater success.

Unlike last year, the cultivation of spring barley in Europe has been expanded considerably in 2012. Besides in the most European countries good qualities were harvested. The supply with spring barley is much bigger than the demand of the processing plants.