Never mind the political quarrels between Russia and the United States. The Miller beer brand seems to be blissfully unaffected by them. Hence SABMiller RUS a subsidiary of SABMiller, has decided to launch a new product, Miller Midnight. It is supposedly a dark lager with the light refreshing taste of a pale one. This product is specifically brewed for Russian market and only available there.

In October 2008 United Serbian Breweries announced that, following the merger of Heineken and Efes in Serbia earlier this year, it will operate the combined business in Serbia under one management team and one name – United Serbian Breweries. In order to become one of the leading players in the Serbian market, United Serbian Breweries has also announced the closure of the former Efes brewery in Pancevo and the decision to scale back production at its breweries in Zajecar and Novi Sad from a total capacity of 2.1 million hl to 1.5 million hl.

Following its takeover of Eichhof Getränke, Heineken Switzerland will relocate its head office to Lucerne in the first half of 2009. The merger will enable the optimisation of processes and organisational structures, meaning that up to 150 jobs across Switzerland will be cut by mid-2010. Redundancies cannot be ruled out.

Oh la la, ce beer est très hot. Stella Artois’ new campaign is probably going to bring out the best franglais in the Brits. Emphasising a spurious French past, the ads will make many punters walk up to the bar and order a lower strength Stella by saying: “Bonjours le you. I voudrais a Stella quatre!” In October InBev UK unveiled a new TV, press and outdoor campaign to promote Stella Artois 4%. The lower-strength Stella Artois 4% was introduced to the off trade in August this year. A draught version is being rolled out in the on-trade from November.

SABMiller reported in October 2008 that its first-half performance was in line with its expectations, with lager volumes up 3 percent, but quoted deteriorating global conditions as the reason why the prospects for the second were uncertain.

Krones AG, Neutraubling, Germany, won the 2008 Water Innovation Award in Gold from the trade periodical "bottledwaterworld" in the "Best packaging innovation" category for a 0.5-l PET bottle weighing a mere 6.6 grams. This year’s competition, organised by Zenith International Publishing, attracted 201 entries from 40 different countries.

A new generation of the Innofill DVD precisely geared towards today’s requirements is now being introduced to the market. The Innofill DVD is well suited for the filling of cans with both carbonated and non-carbonated beverages. Whether beer, carbonated or non-carbonated alcohol-free beverages, wine, sparkling wine or spirits: all are possible. Hot filling of particularly sensitive non-carbonated beverages, such as fruit drinks, is also feasible. The filling machine is able to process fruit beverages containing fibers up to 10 millimeters long and up to 1.5 millimeters in diameter. The output capacities range from 15,000 cans/hour to up to 120,000 cans/hour.

The lengthy discussion leading to an agreement on the Waste Framework Directive has shed light on the importance of keeping a strict five-level waste hierarchy in Europe. This hierarchy explicitly states what has been recognized for a long time: that re-use is one of the best options for saving resources and ensuring a sound, long-term, waste management policy. Re-use is also a climate-friendly alternative to recycling, energy recovery and landfilling. Paradoxically, measures promoting re-use across Europe are either non-existent or under attack.

The German Hop Museum Wolnzach has organised a travelling exhibition entitled “Hops and Health”. It was first presented end of August at the University of Illinois in Chicago where the College of Pharmacy hosted the "Garden Walk´08" at the Dorothy Bradley Atkins Medicinal Plant Garden. During the two day event, Dr. Doel Soejarto and his collegues opened the doors and let the public get a better understanding of their research work on medicinal plants. This year’s event particularly highlighted the plant Humulus lupulus L.

As heterogeneous the sowing of the spring barley has started in Europe, as heterogeneous seems the harvest is going to be. The first preliminary results show values that vary a lot. Anyhow there is the talk of overage of brewing barley in Europe. Normally diseases and fusarium are not a big problem.