United Kingdom | And another one goes to – Lion. Australia’s number two brewer, Lion, which is owned by Japan’s Kirin, has followed up on last year’s purchase of London’s Fourpure brewery with the acquisition of Yorkshire’s craft brewer Magic Rock. The full takeover was announced on 29 March 2019. Financial details were not disclosed.

Germany | Wow. Unexpectedly, US craft brewer Stone has sold its Berlin brewery and taproom to Scottish craft brewer BrewDog. The transaction was announced on 5 April 2019.

Poland | Carlsberg Polska, the local unit of Danish brewer Carlsberg, hopes that 2019 will be another bumper year for brewers, with beer sales (by value) nudging up 2 percent to 3 percent. At 40 million hl, Poland is the European Union’s third-largest beer market, behind Germany and the United Kingdom (for the time being).

United Kingdom | BrewDog’s staff must share the founders’ profound sense of irony if they can be persuaded to wear t-shirts at work with slogans taken from negative reviews.

United Kingdom | Ask people if they have heard of AB-InBev and most likely you will draw a blank. This has irked AB-InBev for a while, which is why it has taken the step to boost the company’s profile by changing its name to Budweiser Brewing Group in the UK and Ireland.

Ireland | Third time lucky? Competition among cider brands is set to intensify, as Diageo has launched a new brand to challenge C&C’s Bulmers and Heineken’s Orchard Thieves.

Germany | A change of mind? AB-InBev has called off the sale of two of its breweries – Diebels and Hasseröder. All discussions with interested parties have been terminated, AB-InBev announced on 20 March 2019.

France | After Elliott Management announced it had spent about USD 1 billion to build a stake of more than 2.5 percent in drinks company Pernod Ricard at the end of 2018, the New York-based hedge fund called for improvements to Pernod Ricard’s margins and governance, which it claimed needed more outside influence.

Germany | It is a confusing system. Why do retailers charge a deposit EUR 0.25 (USD 0.28) for beverage containers that can be returned for recycling, whereas beer bottles that are returned to be refilled only command a deposit of EUR 0.08 (USD 0.09)? The explanation is to do with who determines the deposit.

Italy | It must have been a labour of love. Or why would anybody spend years to write a three-volume (over 1,000 pages in total!) compendium on beer? As the authors are Italian and the books are written in Italian, you cannot rule out a pedagogic purpose.