Dutch brewer Heineken, which acquired Finland’s Hartwall business through its takeover of Scottish & Newcastle last year, cited the current market environment with increased price competition, rising alcohol taxation, declining consumption, and increased personal imports as reasons behind its plans to close the Tornio brewery.

The Dunston brewery near Newcastle was acquired by Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) in 2004, with the purchase of the assets of the Northern Clubs Federation Brewery. All beer production – including Newcastle Brown Ale – was transferred to Dunston from the former Tyne brewery when it finally closed in 2005.

Given that Russia’s economy will shrink more than 10 percent this year, dragging down beer consumption with it, Heineken’s management must have taken a long hard look at their breweries in Russia and decided that it was no longer economically feasible to run two breweries in one city (St Petersburg) and three in the Urals.

The Coca-Cola Company, Bitburger Brewery and several other companies – many showed willing to come to the Kowalskys’ rescue. But only Oetker put up enough money to clinch a deal. Obviously, there was a catch to Oetker’s offer of help: Peter and Stefan Kowalsky had to sell some of their shares. However, they will continue to run the company together with an emissary from Oetker.

They don’t make them like him anymore: an urbane sophisticated gentleman, conscious of his cultural roots, well-versed in German and Italian and willing to engage himself professionally and voluntarily in brewing. Therefore, it was a well-timed decision by the Italian and German brewmasters’ bodies to honour Dr Zangrando with an honorary membership. Weihenstephan has a lot to thank Dr Zangrando for. For many decades and across many linguistic and cultural boundaries he has proved himself a true ambassador of Weihenstephan’s creed and achievements.

It would be unfair to say the British were not famous for their cuisine. In fact they are notorious, but that doesn’t make it any better. For quite a long time the fish’n’chips-diet accompanied by a selection of lukewarm ale was the paradigm.

Avanti popolo

Italian beer Market / Knowst thou a country where a former starlette is rumoured to become a minister in the next government; where shop stewards at their company’s expense visit

Blackstone and Lion Capital, both of whom have made several investments in the consumer brand sectors, bought Orangina for EUR 1.85 billion in 2006. They financed the deal with EUR 600 million in equity and the balance in debt.

Carlsberg Group say that the Holsten brewery in the Altona district of Hamburg has an annual production capacity of around 3.2 million hl. Carlsberg Germany is one of the leading breweries in northern and eastern Germany with a production volume of 6.172 million hl beer in 2007. When in April 2004 the Holsten Group became part of Carlsberg Germany, Carlsberg in turn became the world’s number four brewing group.

Diageo’s management is planning very limited price increases during the current fiscal year. Price rises are expected to boost sales about 1 percent in the year ahead, compared with 3 percent to 4 percent in the previous year ended 30 June 2009.