The court ruling that SABMiller’s shareholders should be divided into two groups when voting on AB-InBev’s takeover offer on 28 September 2016 was hailed by some as a victory for small shareholders. A victory, really?

Doesn’t this sound familiar? First comes the deal then the cost cuts? In well-known fashion AB-InBev will reduce its head-count once the SABMiller deal is completed in about two months. AB-Inbev said on 26 August 2016 that 3 percent of its workforce will have to go.

Heineken currently operates three breweries in The Netherlands, one of which is located in the southern city of ’s-Hertogenbosch, which is colloquially known as Den Bosch. The facility currently produces around six million hectoliters (600 million liters/159 million gallons) of beer annually, which is exported to more than 150 countries.

Before AB-InBev can officially take over SABMiller, shareholders in SABMiller will have to vote on the offer on 28 September 2016. At the behest of SABMiller’s board, the UK High Court ruled on 24 August 2016 that SABMiller’s two biggest investors, Altria and Bevco (the Santo Domingo family) should be treated as a separate group to others in the vote, meaning a higher level of approval will be needed for the deal to proceed.

Rather than clearing up the muddle of how to define craft beer, Italy’s lawmakers have made it even muddier by stipulating that it must not be pasteurised or microfiltered. Which makes you wonder: what were they thinking?

Tell consumers what’s what. The Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) in August 2016 launched a new craft beer classification to help consumers identify what it says is the genuine article.

The Brussels Beer Challenge takes place for the fifth time this year. After Brussels (in 2012), Liege (in 2013), Leuven (2014) and Antwerp (2015), this international event will once again take place in Brussels.

Not only Leuven’s socialist mayor Louis Tobback is pleased that AB-InBev will remain headquartered in the city following its acquisition of SABMiller. Rik Daems, a city councillor and member of the Liberal party, is also a happy man. Both want AB-InBev’s CEO Carlos Brito to be made a citizen of honour, the Belgian newspaper De Tijd reported on 5 August 2016.

Oh ye innocents. What do you think a takeover by a foreign company means? It means you end up being run by foreigners. So why the feigned surprise over AB-InBev’s new executive management board? Just because it does not have one single SABMiller veteran on the list?

Having followed closely the year-long saga of the world’s number two brewer SABMiller being taken over by the world’s number one, AB-InBev, I could not help but look at Edouard Manet’s painting Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) with different eyes. This iconic painting is widely available on the internet.