… especially if brewers from all over the world meet for their own Olympic World Brewing Congress. After Orlando and San Diego, Honolulu was the port of call for more than 800 brewing industry representatives from 2 to 6 August 2008.

They either did not pay him enough or his criminal energy ran high – Colombia’s attorney general’s office arrested on 13 July Sunday the treasurer of the country’s largest brewer, Bavaria, owned by London-based SABMiller.

InBev was lucky to secure such a large loan to finance its takeover of Anheuser-Busch. Banks are currently imposing much more stringent conditions for corporate borrowers, in a reversal of the balance of power during the years of plentiful credit.

Although the U.S. beer market has seen scant growth in recent years, Anheuser-Busch Cos. posted a 1.8 percent increase in second-quarter net income as the company boosted its dividend 12 percent ahead of its planned takeover by InBev and announced planned price increases this fall on 85 percent of its U.S. beer volume.

With the closure of the Goose Island Brewpub in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, the Siebel Institute has had to find a new classroom – which it has: in its office building.

The announcement of the USD 52 billion sale of Anheuser-Busch to InBev on 14 July 2008 throws the future of ten Anheuser-Busch amusement and water parks into the air, including that of several other businesses which InBev may consider as “non core”.

What’s more interesting – gaining insight into U.S. consumer habits or learning more about beverage trends in the U.S.? Actually, both. That’s why attending the 2008 Beverage Forum in New York proved insightful, especially to foreigners.

If rumours are true that did the rounds in the United States last week, then Grupo Modelo was close to selling its shares to Anheuser-Busch in order to save its Big Brother from InBev´s unsolicited attention.

Although last week InBev and Anheuser-Busch were still in loggerheads over some legal quibbles and it seemed that the hostilities could drag on well into the final weeks of the U.S. presidential campaign, the shareholders of Anheuser-Busch decided that enough was enough and pushed Anheuser-Busch towards accepting a sale. That way they prevented Anheuser-Busch and its brands from suffering any irreparable damage.

Fruit beverages, long a staple of Americans´ beverage diet, have struggled to keep up with changes in the marketplace, a new report by the Beverage Marketing Corporation says.