Where would we be without watchful non-governmental organisations? Having been accused by the environmental pressure group Deutsche Umwelthilfe of dodging on deposits (BRAUWELT International reported), German brewer Radeberger, which imports Corona, has acknowledged some “oversight”. On 10 July 2012 Radeberger promised that it would now put the Corona bottles into a proper recycling system, which, according to German law, means that the empties have to be returned to source where they are refilled and then shipped back to Germany. In the past, the empties were collected and shipped to Mexico to be “recycled” (whatever that means in Mexico), in exchange for which Grupo Modelo sent new bottles to Germany. This is in clear violation of German law.

Google, Amazon, Toyota and AB-Inbev are among the least "transparent" major corporations around the world, according to a new study. Transparency International (TI), the Germany-based not-for-profit group, rated how openly the 105 biggest global companies reported their anti-corruption schemes, country-by-country sales and organisational structures. AB-InBev ranked tenth – from the bottom.

Home Office minister James Brokenshire has told Parliament that the Government is to produce an Impact Assessment on the effect of minimum pricing on the industry and other affected parties in the coming months, the Morning Advertiser reported on 13 July 2012.

Looks like the Ministry of Agriculture, which owns the Budweiser Budvar brewery, is hoping to pull a heavy fire blanket over the controversial audit of the brewery. The audit was supposed to have been completed in June. Now Richard Hunt, a market observer in the Czech Republic, told BRAUWELT International that the Ministry informed him that the report is with them, that somebody is reading through it and that other ministries have to read it, too. "They seem a bit vague about it" was his impression.

What if Germany’s major cheap beer producer Oettinger (10 million hl) was to change hands? Who would want to buy the secretive family-owned company? Although it was only a teenie-weenie rumour that seems to have passed most of Germany’s gossipy beer industry bigwigs by, Oettinger’s Managing Director and owner Dirk Kollmar was still quick to extinguish it. He told infodienst.de, an online news service, on 4 July 2012 that his company "is not on the menu because it is writing the menu".

When the going gets tough ... the tough take each other to the court. In early July 2012, the Brussels commercial court ruled that AB-InBev must stop selling its low-alcohol beer Jupiler Blue because its blue-and-white label is too similar to Maes Pils, a beer brewed by Heineken’s Belgian subsidiary Alken-Maes. Alken-Maes insisted that the use of blue bottles and cans would confuse the consumer; its blue label was registered in 2006.

The Olympic Games are about to start so it’s high time for British jingoists to flex their muscles. The LibDem Member of Parliament Greg Mulholland, who also happens to be the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary "Save the Pub" Group, on 6 July 2012 expressed his dismay at the Olympic Committee’s choice of Heineken over a UK brewed beer, as the official beer of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Don’t be surprised when towards the end of September you will be greeted by a cheerful "Happy New Beer" in Austria’s bars and pubs. Austria’s brewers have decided that far too long a once-cherished tradition has been abandoned: Brewers’ New Year which used to be celebrated on 30 September.

Deutsche Umwelthilfe, an environmental pressure group, on 4 July 2012 took on Radeberger, Germany’s major brewer and Corona Extra importer, over allegedly not shipping empty Corona bottles back to Mexico for them to be refilled, despite charging German consumers a deposit of EUR 0.08 per bottle for doing just this. Had Radeberger declared the Corona bottles to be non-refillable, which Deutsche Umwelthilfe suspects they really are, the brewer would have had to charge consumers a higher deposit of EUR 0.25 per bottle.

Ziemann has applied for the opening of insolvency proceedings at the local District Court of Ludwigsburg. The Stuttgart lawyer Dr Tibor Braun was appointed as the provisional insolvency administrator. The objective of this proceeding is to successfully complete the sales process for the company, which was initiated five months ago. In November 2011 the shareholders of Ziemann transferred their shares to trustees, the lawyers Mr Volker