It’s bonus season for bankers in the UK, including at banks bailed out by taxpayers. Many Britons’ underlying resentment of highly paid bankers has come to the fore.

Davos, Switzerland, became the temporary capital of the planet during the last week of January 2011 as business and policy leaders converged at the World Economic Forum to tackle pressing issues.

A big leap forward? On 2 February 2011 Molson Coors UK, which produces Carling and Grolsch lagers, announced it has bought Sharp’s, the Cornwall-based craft brewery, for GBP 20 million or 12 times profits.

Belarus may be Europe’s last dictatorship, but Carlsberg obviously believes that the country of 10 million people with an average beer consumption of 49 litres is a promising and important market.

The world gives little thought to Belgium. But it should. Chronic bickering between Flemings and Walloons since the general election in June 2010 has left a caretaker government in office for 230 days …

Albert Christmann, the CEO of Radeberger Group, spoke the truth when he remarked that in 2010 German beers were flogged off at such low prices no one would have imagined only a few years ago.

In some sectors of the UK beverage industry, the government’s announcement of introducing a minimum price for alcohol sales below duty plus VAT was seen as the "least distorting option".

The Bavarian Brewers’ Federation had tried to prevent the Dutch from using the "Bavaria" label under the EU’s protected geographical indication system, which allows only food or drink producers from the territory in question to use the name.

The big surprise came in Europe where quarterly volumes were flat after forecasts for a continued fall. Growth in Britain and Ukraine helped compensate volume declines in Russia (-7 percent) and the Czech Republic (-7 percent).

Frankfurter Brauhaus, a private label producer, has been keen to increase capacity in Germany. It runs a brewery in Frankfurt/Oder near the Polish border, and one in France (sold by Kronenbourg in 2006). Last year it struck a deal with InBev Germany to have 100,000 hl of the Bergadler beer brand produced at InBev’s brewery in Hannover. Incidentally, the Bergadler brand (sold by the discount retailer Lidl) was once produced by InBev until 2007 when InBev moved out of licensed beer production.