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Glas of Guiness (Photo: Christopher Zapf on Unsplash)

United Kingdom | Diageo said on 28 January that it was selling its 80 percent stake in the Ghana subsidiary to Castel, which already acts as a brewing and distribution partner to Diageo in a number of African markets. The transaction is valued at USD 81 million.

Person mixing sices and Tonic with gin (Photo: Timothe Durand on Unsplash)

United Kingdom | Fevertree’s investors were delighted. Shares of Fevertree Drinks surged almost 24 percent on 30 January, after Molson Coors took an 8.5 percent stake in a USD 88 million deal. It gives Molson Coors exclusive rights to market Fevertree’s cocktail mixers and tonic water in the United States.

View of the Kreml (Photo: Artur Janas on Pixabay)

Czech Republic | Between January and October 2024, the Czech Republic exported almost 331 000 hl beer to Russia, media reported in January. This is an increase of 27 percent year-on-year. Despite the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions, Russia is the third most important destination for the Czech beer, behind Germany and Slovakia.

Stella Artois beer tap, close-up (Photo: Paras Kapoor on Unsplash)

Belgium | The Belgian Competition Authority has launched a formal antitrust probe into AB-InBev over concerns its commercial conditions breach EU rules prohibiting abuse of dominance and anticompetitive agreements.

Two feet on a bathroom scale, view from above (Photo: i yunmai on Unsplash)

United Kingdom | Veteran investment manager Terry Smith has ditched his fund’s stake in drinks firm Diageo after almost 15 years. He reckons the drinks industry is in trouble due to the impact that weight-loss drugs could have in turning people off alcohol.

Pile of wooden barrels (Photo: Brian Taylor on Unsplash)

United Kingdom | Distillers should be worried. UK whisky exports were down by nearly 30 percent by value from January to September 2024, compared with the same period in 2023.

View of the Red Square in Moscow in winter (Photo: Michael Parulava on Unsplash)

Russia | 2025 began with a whole lot of bad tidings for foreign brewers: Not only did Russia confiscate AB-InBev-Efes’ local assets, it also announced new punitive tariffs on imports from countries it deems “unfriendly”, including Germany, effective 1 January 2025.

Figures of bride and groom on top of a white and pink wedding cake, detail (Photo: Sandra Grünewald on Unsplash)

United Kingdom | BrewDog’s co-founder James Watt suggested he may have to delay his marriage to reality TV star Georgia Toffolo for three years, so that he can claim a tax relief for investing in her raw dog food business. This was reported by the BBC on 18 December.

Person holding a bottle of Efes against a sunlit sky (Photo: Can Yilmaz on Unsplash)

Russia | Will AB-InBev-Efes befall the same fate as Carlsberg’s Russian unit Baltika? In a novel twist, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, on 30 December 2024, signed a decree which placed AB-InBev-Efes’s Russian operations under temporary management. The decree involved handing over all of the joint venture’s assets to a firm called “GK Vmeste”.

Charles Leclef, left, sells his Het Anker brewery to Alain De Laet, owner of Huyghe Brewery (Photo: courtesy of Huyghe Brewery)

Belgium | Is the sale of family brewer Het Anker to industry peer Huyghe Brewery, which became public on 26 December 2024, just a lucky match? Or is it a symptom of a wider industry malaise that a swift exit may be the best option all things considered? Beer sales in Belgium dropped 5.8 percent in 2023 over 2022, while exports declined 7.5 percent, according to industry association Belgian Brewers.

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