Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland – Europe’s list of tax havens is long. And it’s getting longer. On 11 January 2015 the European Commission ruled that about 35 multinational companies, including brewer AB-InBev, have received tax sweeteners from Belgium so generous as to amount to illegal state aid.

There is so much money sloshing around the globe trying to find a new home, that AB-InBev had no trouble selling USD 46 billion in bonds. Actually, AB-InBev’s bond offer was heavily oversubscribed: it could have sold more than USD 110 billion on 13 January 2016, reports the Financial Times. Still, it was the second largest corporate bond offer on record.

In early January 2015, AB-InBev confirmed its plans to provide consumers with full ingredient and nutritional information for its beers, probably in a bid to stem the obesity crisis. Well, they did not say as much.

She was a force to be reckoned with. Margarethe Fuchs, who was actually a brewer by training at a time when few women would consider such a job, not only managed to defend the Forst brewery’s home turf in South Tyrolia, she also made sure that Forst to this day remains one of the few privately-owned breweries in Italy.

It seems that Britain’s lager segment faces particularly strong competition from the rising popularity of ales and bitters, whose success has been fuelled by the craft beer boom. Indeed, new research from market intelligence agency Mintel reveals that 49% of Brits drank lager in 2015 (in the six months to October), down from 54% in 2014 (in the six months to September).

How bizarre: Only three weeks after AB-InBev put the London craft brewer Meantime on the market in order to assuage worries that European competition regulators might have about the AB-InBev+SABMiller tie-up, AB-InBev on 21 December 2015 announced that it has taken over the craft brewer Camden Town, a similar brand to Meantime. Insiders wonder: why does AB-InBev think that Meantime will not pass muster with the antitrust people but Camden Town will?

It will be interesting to see how much Peroni and Grolsch will fetch when offers for the two businesses are tabled this month. Indicative offers are due in mid-January, with a tight schedule for due diligence in order to clinch a deal by early March, media say.

British media called upon their readers to spare a thought for the folks at Meantime Brewery, about to be offloaded by AB-InBev just seven months after being bought by SABMiller.

We really had NO IDEA! Bitter Tears, a cocktail made from real human tears, is just the latest recipe to be created from human excretions. The trend is called “body food” and it seems to be on an unpalatable rise, The Guardian (UK) newspaper reported on 8 December 2015.

That’s a good one. AB-InBev said on 3 December 2015 that they are exploring the sale of a number of SABMiller’s European premium brands to address “regulatory concerns” ahead of their planned merger.