Pernod Ricard concluded that its first-quarter trends were encouraging for the full year, with the European market improving. The company is aiming for growth in operating profit from recurring operations of close to 6 percent.

On 5 January 2010, AB-InBev announced a large restructuring plan that involved cutting 304 jobs at its sites in Leuven in Flanders, Jupille in Wallonia and at other sites in Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels. Management justified its decision by citing the fall in beer consumption in Belgium by some 20 percent between 2000 and 2008. Nevertheless, trade unions and workers rejected this explanation since the group seemed to have escaped the economic crisis, given the large profits achieved in 2009.

Total revenue in the quarter rose 13 percent to EUR 4.6 billion. Net profit was EUR 520 million, the company said, without giving a comparable figure.

At the end of October 2010, Brigid Simmonds, Chief Executive of the BBPA, called on the government to give the embattled brewing and pub industries a break by cutting regulation and reducing VAT.

C&C’s British sales were also boosted by last year’s purchases of Scottish beer brand Tennent’s from AB-InBev and the UK cider assets of Constellation Brands.

Organised in collaboration with the Belgian Brewers and the fine cooks association Euro-Toques International, Alberto da Ponte, President of The Brewers of Europe said: “The gala highlighted the brewing sector’s contribution to the European economy in terms of employment and tax revenues and on issues like community involvement and responsible drinking. We also had a frank discussion about key policy issues, such as the need to get the tax framework right.”

Munich media also reported with some glee that Jobst Kayser-Eichberg, who was one of the previous owners, was fully convinced until last year that InBev would vacate the inner city site so that he could develop it.

Corona Extra accounts for 90 percent of the distribution of Grupo Modelo’s products in the UK. Other prominent brands in the Modelo portfolio include Coronita (210 ml bottles of Corona), Modelo Especial, Pacífico, and Negra Modelo.

Groupe Castel, originally a wine business, was founded in 1949 by nine brothers and sisters and is still run by its founding president Pierre Castel, 84. It branched out into beer and soft drinks in Africa, the Caucasus and Vietnam. The breweries in Vietnam and Azerbaijan have since been sold.

As a Bavarian I have always found it an embarrassment to visit Bavarian-themed restaurants wherever I travelled. Most of them tended to overdo the Bavarian oompah experience as if the Oktoberfest was the only place Bavarians will go to have a good beer and suck in the atmosphere. I won’t tell you what I let myself in when I visited Mader’s and Karl Ratzsch’s in Milwaukee years ago. In the 19th century Milwaukee probably had the largest number of Bavarians away from home. And the places looked it. Hadn’t seen a pot of paint for decades. Being a journalist, I put these two visits down as “interesting experiences”, best never to be repeated.