True, the supermarket chain Tesco has heaps of problems of its own, but perhaps it’s also a sign of the times that retailers think that a reduction in SKUs will take complexities and costs out of their operations.

Who or what reined in Belgium’s legislators? Was it political sense or successful lobbying? In any case, the beer tax hike as of 1 November 2015 will not be as high as proposals suggested in July this year.

Fortune favours the brave

Given that Belgian beer consumption has dropped almost a quarter over the past twenty years to 72 litres per capita while one in three breweries shut its doors over the past seventy years, an American delegate at the recent Beer Bloggers Conference in Brussels could be forgiven for asking pointedly: “Are we supposed to be shocked or relieved by these numbers?” He got no reply. Which is no surprise as Belgium’s 160 brewers are so used to facing strong headwinds both domestically and in their export markets that “resilience” must be their middle name.

Is the recent asset swap between Heineken and Diageo a sign that brewers’ promiscuous days are over? Diageo and Heineken announced on 7 October 2015 that they have agreed to unbundle their ownership ties related to their beer businesses in Ghana, Jamaica, Malaysia and Singapore, resulting in a cash payment of USD 780.5 million to Diageo.

As AB-InBev and SABMiller hammer out the final terms of their deal and the beer industry catches its breath from Tuesday’s ground-breaking USD 104 billion offer, it’s time to congratulate SABMiller’s feisty Chairman Jan du Plessis on a job well-done. He managed to squeeze as much out of AB-InBev as was possible.

It took the head of The Public Investment Corp (PIC), a South African state-owned pension fund and SABMiller’s fourth-largest shareholder, to point out the obvious: a takeover of SABMiller by AB-InBev would not only create a global brewer, which controls about 30 percent of the world’s beer volumes and a mind-blowing 58 percent of all beer industry profits, it would above all establish a monopoly that is too dominant and thus will hurt consumers.

Man, some people are really stupid. They drink beer from shoes and boots at the Munich Oktoberfest – should you need proof. How disgusting.

As the talks between AB-InBev and SABMiller drag on, more and more critical voices can be heard via an all too willing international media, arguing that the

For the potential ignominy of losing the battle against AB-InBev, SABMiller’s managers will be royally rewarded. According to The Guardian newspaper, around 1,700 top managers at brewer SABMiller could be in line for payouts averaging USD 1 million (GBP 650,000) each, if AB-InBev succeeds in taking SABMiller over.

To say that beer is in vogue nowadays is the understatement of the year! Recently, hobby brewing has become really popular not only here in Belgium but with our neighbours too, some of whom have developed into real craft brewers.