Waiting for Godot

ESTRAGON: Do you know the story of Belgium’s beer cafés? VLADIMIR: Stop it! ESTRAGON: They go quietly. More than 1,500 last year. VLADIMIR: STOP IT! ESTRAGON: Some stay and fight. But many retreat into the shadows. VLADIMIR: I remain in the dark. ESTRAGON: This is how it is. In western Europe, beer consumption is going down. Yet, in Germany they worry themselves sick over Feinstaub, in Britain they angst over Europe, and in Belgium, where the writing is on the wall for most village cafés, punters just shrug their shoulders and drink their beer elsewhere. VLADIMIR: Nothing can be done. ESTRAGON: Well, there is always the black economy and tax dodging. VLADIMIR: What do brewers do? ESTRAGON: They cry into their beer. And wait for Godot, err the taxman, to clamp down on errant publicans. Or, if they are clever, they rev up beer exports to the U.S.

Is this what you call an orderly transition? It took AB-InBev more than two weeks to name a successor to Mr Beyens. In early November 2009, the Belgian news magazine Trends published the confirmed rumour that at the end of this year Mr Beyens would leave the world’s number one brewer, which he joined in 1987 and where he has held various positions before being appointed General Manager of InBev Belgium in 1999.

According to a company press release, Mr Nasard joins from Procter & Gamble where, since 2006, he has been General Manager of the USD 1.2 billion Personal Care business for central and eastern Europe, the Middle-East and Africa, based in Switzerland. He was in charge of brand design, product and commercial innovation in five product categories and for 12 brands, including the toothpastes Oral-B and Crest and the face lotion Olay. Heineken proudly reports that Mr Nasard’s units have delivered double-digit top-line growth in the past three years.

It does not take much to figure out that Poles drink a lot of everything, especially if it contains “percent” (ABV).

"The weakness of our major operating currencies against the U.S. dollar has affected reported results, but we have continued to generate a strong underlying performance," Chief Executive Graham Mackay was reported as saying.

Dr Christmann insisted that his board had already given the green light to the investment and that the reversal of plans was owed to the economic crisis which is making consumers drink even less beer than anticipated.

The Conclusions on alcohol and health adopted on 1 December by Europe’s Health Ministers miss a golden opportunity to develop a sustainable approach against tackling alcohol-related harm.

For decades Elektror has been famous for customer proximity, quality and reliability concerning the fields of centrifugal fans, axial fans and side channel blowers. The foundation of European on-site subsidiaries – as close to the customer as possible – has been an integral part of their corporate strategy for over two years.

AB-InBev did not give a figure for the year-ago profit, saying it could not compare numbers from Anheuser Busch and InBev before they combined. In the July-September 2008 period InBev made USD 690 million and Anheuser-Busch USD 666.1 million, it was reported.

Peter Lehmann Wines, once stock-market listed, and since 2003 integrated in the Swiss-based Hess Group of companies, achieved an after tax profit of AUD 5.7 million (EUR 3.6 million) on revenue of AUD 51.6 million (EUR 32.2 million) for the full year ending 30 June 2009.