And another one

After months of deliberation, the Polish Ministry of the Interior has granted permission to Austrian brewer Brau Union to invest in Browary Warszawskie (BW), a Warsaw-based brewery. This decision will enable Brau Union to buy the BW shares which BW’s management bought from BW’s employees last year. Brau Union will take control of the brewery since it is purchasing almost 100% of the shares. The Austrian brewer is believed to have paid US$15.9m for BW. Brau Union also owns the Rzeszow-located Van Pur Brewery and the Bydgoszcz-located Kujawiak Brewery. It controls 6% of the Polish beer market and intends to produce 1.75m hl of beer this year.

Orkla’s new executive board

When Finn Jebsen (51) takes over from Jens Heyderdahl as President and Group Chief Executive of Orkla on 2 July 2001, Roar Engeland (41) and Dag J. Opedal (42) will join the board. Engeland currently heads Orkla’s department for corporate development. Opedal has previously held the position of Deputy Managing Director of Orkla Foods. The members of the Executive Board will report to Jebsen who will be respon-sible for the Chemicals and Financial Investments division and will continue to serve as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Carlsberg Breweries. The establishment of Carls-berg Breweries last year, in which Orkla has a 40% stake, represents a significant expansion of the Orkla Group. Group pre-tax profit in the first quarter totalled NOK596m.2m hl of beer and 2..

After action satisfaction

Tut, tut. Perish the thought. This is not about a smelly French cigarette cool people lit in the 60s after a pleasant "matinee", or what the envious Brits would call a bit of hanky panky, a legover job, or a roll in the hay in mid-afternoon. No, this is about Beck’s new brand claim "The Beck’s Experience." Beck’s is now all about "after action satisfaction"... the kind of satisfaction hard-working hedonists experience on a solitary island with a couple of bottles of Beck’s and a sunroof. Last year already Beck’s initiated the re-positioning of its brand as a hot and youthful item in Germany. In support of the repositioning as an aspirational brand, Beck’s raised prices and re-vamped its label.O.S. campaign in 2,500 German retail outlets..

Troubles abroad

If it had not been for the fierce price wars raging in the Polish beer market, German brewer Holsten’s year 2000 profits would have been significantly higher. With Heineken and South African Breweries challenging each other in the Polish streets (they have a 30% market share each), Holsten never managed to raise its
market share to 5% from the present level of 3.4%. On top of that, Hosten achieved a turnover of DM111m (US$48.7m) and a loss of DM17m in its Polish operations.
In Germany Holsten leads the market with a 10% share having recently bought the König Brewery and a stake in the
Licher Brewery. As a consequence, turnover rose to DM2.31 bn (US$1.0 bn), while profits dropped to DM11.8m (US$5.2m), due to the Polish fiasco and a high interest load. Operating margin was 3..

Royal match

The Queen of Beers and a Prinzregent. Albert Cramer, owner of Warsteiner Brewery (5.6m hl in 2000) and His Royal Highness Luitpold Prince of
Bavaria who owns Kaltenberg brewery (400,000 hl) have decided to found two companies dedicated to promoting Prince Luitpold’s brands "Prinzregent Luitpold Weißbier" and "König Ludwig Dunkel".
For some time, Warsteiner Brewery, whose brand Warsteiner uses the tag line "the queen of beers" has pursued a course of horizontally diversifying its product portfolio in order to offer its publicans more than just a pils. Hence Warsteiner bought into Miller Brewing Group’s German distributor and now Kaltenberg..

Wallala weiala weia

Funny dialect that is. But not if you are one of Richard Wag-ner’s Rhine maidens by the name of Woglinde, Wellgunde, Floßhilde who feature prominently in his opera "Rhinegold". At the bottom of the Rhine, that’s where you sing like that. Düsseldorf’s own Rhine maidens will be singing on the
Rhine too on 30 June when the first dance event, blue parade® (www.blueparade.de), is launched. From Düsseldorf to Cologne and back, 4,000 techno fans will be hotting up and chilling out on three industrial barges converted to blue boats, the flagship barge being a converted car transporter. After the eight hour long Rhine cruise, the party will continue into the morning in one of Düsseldorf’s most popular clubs. Tickets are US$15 each. Wallala weiala weia..

Parliament okays compulsory deposit on cans

The German Bundesrat, one of the houses of Parliament, has voted in favour of introducing a compulsory deposit on beverage cans from 2002. In order to bring up the quota of returnable beverage containers to 72% from its current low rate of 62%, there shall be a DM0.5 (US$0.2) deposit charge per can. It is hoped that a compulsory deposit on cans will help reduce Germany’s garbage load and protect small and medium-sized breweries and beverage companies that are unable to afford a can filler. The German Bundesrat, the other house of Parliament, will take a vote on this issue on 22 June.

Brau Union takes over the Steyr Brewery

Brau Union Österreich AG, Linz is taking over Bürgerliche Brauerei Steyr GmbH. The aim is to further strengthen the company’s core business, and improve utilisation of distribution channels, says a press release. Both parties have agreed to keep the purchase price confidential. The sales volume of Brauerei Steyr Getränke GmbH totals 100,000 hl per annum, with a workforce of 55. Brauerei Steyr Getränke GmbH had already been allied to Brau Union in the past. The company will continue to be run as an autonomous enterprise.

The German paradox

And you thought that only the Gaul vintners with their French Paradox could gall a brewer. Actually, their neighbours across the Rhine don’t find that a difficult task either. Sadly, in this case it’s brewers who are dipping their pen in gall. Why? It’s called the German paradox. For years, Danstar Ferment AG, a subsidiary of Lallemand, has been engaged in researching and developing a yeast rich in zinc for the German market. Not necessarily for the German market alone, but for a start. Should readers start to wonder: "Hang on, can this be in accordance with the Reinheitsgebot?", be assured that this was the idea: to develop a live yeast with organically metabolised zinc whose nutrients could be metabolised by the brewer’s yeast in the course of fermentation. But not in Germany...

Focus on new plants: Brouwerij der Trappisten van Westmalle cvba, Belgium:A new valve control and indication unit in operation

The long established Trappisten Brewery in Westmalle, Belgium, were keen to install the new "ThinkTop"® control and indication unit into their