For too long for us to remember there has been talk in the Czech Republic about selling the Budvar brewery. Everybody with half a brain thought that the buyer would be Anheuser-Busch. Moreover, they believed they would have the Americans over a barrel. The reasoning went that in order to end the accursed trademark dispute, the Americans would be prepared to pay far more for Budvar than the brewer’s fair market value.

Seven of the capital’s brewers met at the Redemption Brewery in Tottenham in late August to brew a porter. The seven brewers were Brodie’s in East London, Camden Town Brewery, Fullers, The Ha’Penny Brewing Company, The Kernal Brewery, Meantime Brewery and Redemption Brewery.

The volume of beer sold declined. The decline was led by a 9.4 percent slump in central and eastern Europe. Volumes in western Europe, the company’s biggest profit contributor, fell 2.5 percent. In Africa and the Middle East, volumes jumped 7.2 percent, the company said, helped by output growth in Nigeria and South Africa. Heineken is working to expand capacity at the Sedibeng brewery, which opened near Johannesburg this year.

By contrast, in the U.S. sales by volume were down 2 percent and net sales 3 percent lower, while in Europe volume rose 1 percent but net sales fell 2 percent.

In its consultation paper, the UK’s Home Office says it wants to overhaul the Licensing Act, which regulates the sale of alcohol in the UK, to give local communities a greater say in these decisions.

Russia is the second-largest producer of barley in the world after the EU, and while much of its production is feed for livestock, a growing proportion of it is used for malting.

The brewer of Stella Artois said its so-called organic EBITDA grew 5.6 percent, even though in North America, the company’s biggest market region, beer sales fell 3.4 percent. Volume had dropped 6.1 percent in the region in the first quarter. The decline in sales to retailers in the U.S. slowed to 1.7 percent compared with 4.4 percent in the first three months of the year.

The brewer said it now expects a high single-digit percentage decline for the Russian market in 2010, pointing to an improving Russian economy and slightly better consumer confidence, compared with a previous forecast for a low double-digit percentage drop.

According to the Barth report, almost 93 percent of total beer output was accounted for by the world’s 40 biggest beer-producing countries. The five largest brewing groups, AB-InBev, SAB Miller, Heineken, Carlsberg and China Resource Brewery Ltd., controlled nearly 50 percent of the world beer market.

In the past few months, since it was leaked to the press that de Koninck was up for grabs, mainly foreign brewers were rumoured to be interested in buying the struggling brewer, Heineken among them.