Just when you think you see the light at the end of the tunnel – uh-oh. Investors in Carlsberg were in for a big surprise when Carlsberg reported its full year 2016 results on 8 February 2017. Although Carlsberg said that the decline in the Russian beer market has possibly flattened out, the Danish brewer nevertheless forecast a 5 percent drop in volumes for 2017.

Looks like things are brightening up for Russia’s brewers. In 2016, beer sales in Russia declined only between 1 and 2 percent estimates Frans Hoyer, an analyst with Denmark’s Jyske Bank, who has been following the brewer for the past 40 years.

Hola! AB-InBev and Molson Coors want to get in on the action early before prices go through the roof.

Isn’t it ironic that one of the most vocal “Remainers” in the Brexit debate, Diageo’s CEO Ivan Menezes, had to disclose to media that the drinks company has actually profited from the Brexit vote. Diageo has seen rising profits thanks to a triple tonic from a weakened sterling, robust Scotch sales and a strong US performance.

The German beer cartel was not just a horizontal one, involving several brewers, it was also a vertical one including large German retailers.

Preliminary data by the German Brewers Association suggest that German brewers sold more than 96 million hl beer in 2016, which represents a small increase over 2015 when sales stood at 95.7 million hl.

It’s a record of sorts. Who would have thought that, with 740 breweries in December 2016, Switzerland ranks 4th behind the UK (1,880), Germany (1,400) and France (793) and ahead of Italy (688)? For a country of only 8 million people, that’s a huge number of breweries. Statistically that’s one brewery per 11,000 inhabitants. In comparison the US has only one brewery per 64,000 people. However, most Swiss breweries would be very small indeed as 99 percent of all beer is produced by 49 breweries with an output in excess of 1,000 hl.

Why has no one noticed that Heineken’s proposed acquisition of about 1,900 pubs in the Punch Tavern group actually nullifies the Beer Orders, a bill introduced by the Thatcher government in 1989 to force the big brewers to divest their large pub estates? Provided the transaction is not vetoed by shareholders bowing to publicans’ protest, brewer Heineken could become the third-largest pub operator in the UK.

Financial markets are buzzing with excitement: Kweichow Moutai could take the crown from Diageo as the most valuable drinks company this year. After a heady share price rally in 2016, when its stock climbed 53 percent, the market capitalisation of Kweichow Moutai stood at USD 63 billion on 11 January 2017, only a few billion behind Diageo’s at USD 66 billion.

This must be a first: a collaboration brew between a US corporate brewer and a Bavarian state-owned one, although few beer lovers will know about the ownership situation.