It is now 16 years since the declaration of Council Directive 92/83/EEC, where the European Union declared its intention to ‘harmonize the structure for excise duties on alcoholic beverages and alcohol contained in other products to ensure the establishment of the internal market’. A new report from Canadean ‘Beer Pricing in Europe - a taxing Question’ provides an in-depth study of the tax weight on beer, by individual markets and compared to other member states. The report exposes just how little progress has been made during this time and highlights the wide variance in tax burdens across the European Union.

The CEO of Symrise AG, Holzminden/Germany, Dr. Gerold Linzbach has informed the Supervisory Board of Symrise AG that, for personal reasons, he does not intend to extend his contract beyond the end of October 2009.

Heterogeneous spring barley in the EU

The time seems right, now. Or so they say. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’ s newly-formed number one brewer, launched an eight-for-five rights issue on 24 November at a steeply-discounted price of EUR 6.45 per share to partly fund InBev’ s USD 52 billion purchase of Anheuser-Busch.

The Indian entrepreneur Lord Bilimoria has decided to put Cobra, the beer business he founded 18 years ago, up for sale for an estimated GBP 200 million after sales talks with Diageo had collapsed a few months ago.

Stefan Schörghuber, the owner and Chief Executive Officer of the Munich-based Schörghuber Corporate Group, died unexpectedly on 25 November. He was 47 years old. The privately-owned Schörghuber Corporate Group which holds a controlling stake in Germany’s number three brewer, BrauHolding International, is also active in the real estate and construction business as well as in hotels and aircraft leasing. Mr Schörghuber’s sudden death renews rumours over the future of BrauHolding International, which is 49.9 percent owned by Heineken.

It’s a funny old world. The man partly responsible for C&C’s problems in the United Kingdom, the former boss of Scottish & Newcastle, John Dunsmore, 49, has been named the new CEO of the troubled Irish Drinks group.

Carlsberg has said it is confident it will benefit from the Russian market in the long-term, despite a recent slowdown. In October 2008, Carlsberg saw its share price decline 25 percent after it cut its 2008 growth outlook for the Russian beer market to 1–2 percent from 5 percent. Earlier this year Carlsberg had taken a big gamble on Russia when it bought a part of UK-based brewer Scottish & Newcastle for around DKR 57 billion (USD 9.8 billion). The deal included the 50 percent of Baltic Beverages Holding, which Carlsberg didn’t already own. Now Carlsberg relies on the Russian market for 40 percent of group earnings.

Chancellor Alistair Darling has announced a 2.5 percent cut in VAT to 15 percent until the end of next year – but this will be offset with an eight percent increase on alcohol duty. As a consequence, licensees will not be able to drop the price of a pint of beer as had been hoped in the light of the VAT cut. Both the VAT drop and the alcohol duty rise came into effect on 1 December 2008. Needless to add that the future of Britain’s pubs has been put at risk just as the UK economy is facing a downturn.

Only in October 2008 had Heineken opened a new brewery in Seville in the presence of His Majesty, King Juan Carlos I of Spain. One month later Heineken announced that it would close its brewery in Arano (Navarre), thus bringing down the number of its plants in Spain to four.