Heavens know how many fingernails were broken in an effort to open a bottle of Grolsch. But Royal Grolsch is determined to keep its 111 year tradition.

It was a mixed year for Royal Grolsch, the number four brewer in the Netherlands. While in the U.S. sales to retailers grew 35 percent, volumes in the UK fell by more than 10 percent in a sharply declining market.

The blood-letting at InBev Germany continues. The latest to leave the brewer is Andreas Hilger, Managing Director Marketing. He is to move to the UK in order to help reverse Stella Artois’s flagging fortunes there.

Although the union did not quite achieve its goal of a 6 percent wage increase, a pay rise of 2.9 percent as of March 2008 does not seem bad either.

Many people worry about our climate warming up. Don’t they see the positive side of things? Balmy winters! They are good for beer sales, says Heineken. But that’s about the only positive note to take home from Heineken’s 2007 full year results.

After two years working side by side, Mart Tiismann succeeded Gérard Stricher as president and CEO of Sidel on January 1, 2008. Stricher is retiring in April 2008 at the age of 60. Until then, he will continue to assist Sidel’s new president as he assumes his duties.

Jean-Francois van Boxmeer, Heineken’s CEO, hopes to become Britain’s biggest brewer after teaming up with Carlsberg to launch a recommended bid for Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) worth more than EUR 10 billion.

On the 24th and 25th of April 2008, the 6th Canadean International Beer Strategy Conference will take place in Madrid at the Puerta America Hotel.

The Christmas season, usually one of the major beer selling seasons, has seen an alarming drop of almost 10 percent in beer sales.

Before long, at Private Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn in Kelheim the new beer dealcoholization plant will be commissioned. It is a completely piped compact plant for the expansion of the wheat beer production. The plant operates according to the process developed by GEA Wiegand in the late 80s on the basis of the falling-film evaporator principle, and it is the only known process without recirculation or re-dilution and without rotating distribution system. These unique characteristics are responsible for extremely short residence times and tight distribution of residence time during production and for short cleaning cycles of the plant.