The Coca-Cola Company seems to have high expectations for a fermented non-alcoholic beverage. Although its Spirit of Georgia brand failed to dethrone Bionade, a similar but long-established malt-based soft drink, in Germany, Coke has not given up on the category yet. Instead it has decided to launch Tumult, a fizzy drink made from a natural fermentation process without the production of alcohol, in Paris, hoping to take it to the rest of Europe eventually.

Perhaps The Coca-Cola Company should speed up the roll-out of Tumult. On 5 October 2011 the French Government released more details of a plan to levy a tax on fizzy drinks, which is part of an aggressive campaign to fight a growing obesity epidemic. A recent study found that a diet of junk food is turning the traditionally skinny French into a nation of fat bottoms.

Will they stay or will they leave – Carlsberg’s German employees have wondered. After a series of brewery sales in recent years, which have shrunk Carlsberg’s German unit to merely two production sites, many wondered if Carlsberg was still interested in keeping a presence in Germany. Following a review of its business, Carlsberg announced on 21 September 2011 that they would invest more than EUR 40 million in Germany – especially in its Hamburg Holsten brewery. Hamburg’s mayor, Olaf Scholz, who had travelled to Copenhagen to talk to Carlsberg’s top brass, is pleased that a total of 700 jobs have been saved.

It’s a bit like “spot the difference”. And be damned if you cannot. On 19 September 2011 Heineken announced the launch of a new global company visual identity that is supposed to reflect the “significant transformation of the Heineken business over the past decade.”

More than a quarter of a million jobs have been lost in two years as a result of the growing tax burden and impact of the economic crisis on beer, damaging the European economy as a whole.

In Europe grew a very heterogeneous harvest of spring barley this year. Big differences in quality and quantity characterize the year. The supply could be short.

How naive of you to think that pubs are places to enjoy a beer. They are the taxman’s office away from the office and the publicans his assistants. This message was driven home by Tim Martin, who is Chairman of the 823-strong pub group JD Wetherspoon which he founded in 1979.

The news rocked the earth. Schörghuber Group, Heineken’s joint venture partner in Germany, is going to invest in salmon farming in Chile. But what about the new Paulaner brewery project? No further details. In an exclusive with Germany’s leading national daily “Süddeutsche Zeitung” on 13 September 2011, the heiress to the EUR 1.2 billion turnover Schörghuber Group, Alexandra Schörghuber, only reiterated what has been common knowledge for several months: that they will make a decision on whether to build a new Paulaner brewery in Munich before the end of the year.

It’s a worry. The UK is drifting towards continental Europe. At least when it comes to beer consumption patterns. British drinkers are about to consume more beer at home than in pubs for the first time ever. A report from Zolfo Cooper, a financial advisory firm, which was released in August 2011, suggests that the number of trips people were making to the pub has fallen 19 percent in the past year. It said drinkers now visit pubs an average of 4.3 times a month – against 5.3 times a year ago.

Mon dieu. Why do these suits who run the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) have to be so darn literal? In a recent ruling the ASA slapped Heineken UK on the wrist for saying (or rather implying) in its advertising that Kronenbourg 1664 on sale in the UK is brewed in France.