British food and drinks group Diageo said that its beer division, Guinness, would cut around 100 jobs at its London Park Royal Brewery to improve production efficiency. The West London site brews an estimated 2.2 million hl of draught Guinness stout for the UK market and presently employs about 1,200 people.

Following legal action running for over 20 years, the London Court of Appeal held that the US Anheuser-Busch brewing group and the Czech Budweiser Budvar brewery may use the Budweiser trademark in the UK. Great Britain, importing 80,000 hl, is one of Budweiser Budvar‘s most important export markets.

Although Löwenbräu’s accounts are still in the red, the chief Jobst Kayser-Eichberg has forecasted a "black zero" for the current financial year 1999/2000. During the past financial year 1998/99 beer sales had fallen just below one million hl; turnover declined by DM35 million to DM214 million (US$99.5 million). Löwenbräu which was put under the Spaten Holding three years ago is confident that export sales will pick up again. They had fallen by 15%.

Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze, rose by 20 meters to 2986 meters on 1 May when HRH Prince Luitpold von Bayern, the owner of Kaltenberg Brewery, and the members of the marketing initiative "Royal Bavarian" put a May pole on the top of the mountain. Well, actually they did not place it right on top - the elements would not have allowed that - but outside the summit restaurant. In any case, the may pole made it into the Guinness Book of Records as the highest May pole ever.

Brau Beteiligungs AG (BBAG) of Linz, Austria, operates 18 breweries in Austria and in Eastern Europe. To be able to come ahead of Heineken in Central Europe, acquisition of Feldschlösschen-Hürlimann Holding AG, Switzerland, is also being investigated. In 1999, BBAG had their best operating result. Cash flow increased 24.1% to 107.5 million EUR.

Gordon Brown’s new budget has frozen the duty on spirits for the third year running. All other duty increases are in line with inflation: 1p on a pint of beer, 4p on a bottle of wine, 1p on a litre of cider and 1p on a 330ml bottle of alcopops. A packet of 20 cigarettes now cost about £4.20 (US$6.30), an increase of 25p a packet.

The British Government is set to allow pubs to stay open 24 hours a day, sweeping aside century-old law forcing bars to close at 11pm. Proposals would be put forward at the end of March and would come into effect in 2001. Off-licences would also be allowed to stay open at all hours. Bar licences would no longer be granted by courts but by local councils.

According to a report released by the Slovak Brewers’ Association, beer output in 1999 rose 20,000 hl to 4.41 million hl. Brewers originally planned to produce 5.0 million hl of beer in order to become profitable. Last year, malt production increased 7,500 tonnes to 169,000 tonnes. The continuing decrease in Slovak beer exports remains the most pressing problem facing the industry.

Heineken’s French subsidiary plans to expand its range of beers bottled in PET after the success of its non-refillable 500ml bottle. Brasseries Heineken started test-marketing its 33 Export-brand lager beer in PET more than a year ago. At the end of March, Hein-eken will launch a 1-litre bottle for the same beer and introduce a Panaché, a half-beer, half-lemonade drink, in a 0.5-litre PET bottle, which will retail in packs of four bottles.

For the year ended 31 March, South African Breweries (SAB) reported a 26.5% rise in pre-tax profits from US$600 million to US$764 which has been boosted by an exceptional gain of US$76 million from the sale of SAB’s PGSI subsidiary. While turnover fell from US$6.18 billion to US$5.42 billion, earnings per share improved from 43.9 cents to 64.3 cents; adjusted earnings per share (minus the effect of the PGSI disposal) were 56.6 cents compared with 54 cents for the previous year. The company announced a proposed final distribution of 18.5 cents which makes a total dividend of 25 cents for the year.
SAB confirmed it was intending to either list or sell its hotels and gaming division later in the year..