In terms of marketing the Scottish punk brewer BrewDog is bested by none. It is the only one to date who has successfully managed to turn crowdfunding into a world-wide advertising campaign. Selling a 22 percent stake to a private equity firm for about USD 120 million in 2017 may have been triggered by financial constraints but it gave BrewDog the cash to follow Red Bull’s example and set up its own media group.

At the end of August 2018, media around the world ran headlines screaming “alcohol is bad for you” – or something to this effect. This message was based on a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, which claims to be the definitive study on the benefits and dangers of drinking.

Analysts are sceptical: Why is the Coca-Cola Company spending USD 5.1 billion on a chain of coffee shops, a business in which Coke has no experience? The company announced on 31 August 2018 it will buy Costa Coffee, a chain of British coffee shops, from hotel-operating conglomerate Whitbread to take on Starbucks. It was reported that Coke is paying a high price of 16.4 times Costa’s profits (EBITDA).

What a mess. AB-InBev’s sale of two of its German breweries and brands has fallen through for the second time as the buyer, a tiny German outfit by the name of CK Corporate Finance, again failed to meet its obligations.

Munich has a new brewery. And guess who is behind it? A commercial subsidiary of Germany’s Workers Welfare Organisation (AWO). It was set up, says AWO, to provide employment for people with emotional issues. Haidbräu, as it is called, was put into a building in northern Munich, where AWO already operates several workshops: a joinery and a printing works as well as a bakery.

Prohibition breeds ingenuity. After the ban on kiosk sales of alcohol, some ingenious entrepreneurs invented a specialised retail channel which holds the middle ground between the on-premise and the off-premise. Called “Draught In Off-Trade” (DIOT) it serves beer straight from kegs into PET bottles for shoppers to take home.

Ukraine is turning into Europe’s hub for illegal vodka. With illegal alcohol production estimated at 60 percent of total, smugglers are spreading the moonshine across all of Ukraine’s neighbouring countries. Their ingenuity at upscaling operations needs to be admired. Last year authorities discovered several pipes, each a kilometre long. Once assembled they would have formed a pipeline from Ukraine into Moldova, a country to the southwest of Ukraine which borders with the EU member country of Romania.

Carlsberg is optimistic that in 2018 it will hike its profits (EBITDA) by a high-single-digit percentage. Previously it forecasted an increase of about five percent.

“Innovation” must be the most overused term in consumer goods industries. Whether it’s merely a slight modification, a variation or an improvement – all are customarily billed as “innovations”. However, linguists insist that innovation is synonymous only with the truly novel. It is therefore best compared with a revolution.

George Orwell, defender of brown ale and the English pub, would be aghast. During the first six months of 2018, 476 pubs closed in the UK. That is 18 pubs per week according to CAMRA, which keeps a list. In total around 1,000 pubs shuttered last year.