With heartfelt sorrow, KHS announces the loss of Mark Arrant to cancer on November 11, 2008. Mark had a distinguished career with KHS, beginning June 16, 1999 as Manager – Capping Systems and working his way up through the ranks to finally being named President KHS USA, Inc. in November of 2004 and successfully leading the company through July 2007. Prior to coming to KHS, Mark worked for Alcoa for 5 years in Indianapolis as Manager – Engineering and Field Service.

Carlos Fernandez, the CEO of Mexico’s major brewer Grupo Modelo must know what he’s doing. Not only has he reiterated at a recent conference call that his company under no circumstances would sell its shares to its part-partner Anheuser-Busch, thus angering some of his shareholders with his blatant arrogance. Grupo Modelo on 16 October 2008 also has filed a notice of arbitration against Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., saying that the company’s pending sale to InBev violates their investment agreement.

Shares of Belgian brewer InBev rebounded dramatically on 23 October 2008 from steep declines after the Brazilian government pledged support for propping up the country’s currency, real.

MillerCoors LLC announced that it will discontinue the clear malt beverage Zima, introduced by Coors Brewing Co. in 1992, because of "challenging alternative segment sales and declining consumer interest."

Will the Anheuser-Busch deal fall through or will InBev be victorious in the end? Investors have laid a wager on either possibility. That’s why the arbitrage spread on the pending deal remains wide.

In its 20th year, Grand Teton Brewing Company, known throughout the West for their exceptional microbrews, has won another medal with their legendary Bitch Creek ESB. At this year’s prestigious Great American Beer Festival, Bitch Creek found itself in familiar territory, once again standing on the podium, this time with a silver medal in the American Brown Ale category.

The U.S. carbonated soft drink market’s long struggle to achieve growth persists. After six straight years of sub –1 percent growth (mark those words), volume declined for the third straight year in 2007, says the Beverage Marketing Corporation. In 2007, volume decreased by 2.6 percent to 14.7 billion gallons (9.8 billion cases) from 15.1 billion gallons (10.1 billion cases) in 2006.

They should have known what was coming. In the end MillerCoors had to bow to public pressure and announce that they were putting on hold the introduction of Sparks Red, a new caffeinated alcoholic beverage about which 25 state attorneys general have expressed concern.

SABMiller announced that its Colombian subsidiary Bavaria has agreed to dispose of its Agua Brisa bottled water business and assets, which will be acquired jointly by Coca-Cola FEMSA and The Coca-Cola Company, for a consideration of USD 92 million. The disposal of Agua Brisa is subject to approval by the Colombian competition authorities and other customary pre-closing conditions, with the closing of the transaction expected in late 2008 or early 2009.

The controversy over MillerCoors’ alcoholic energy drink, Sparks, underlines the claims made by our correspondent Ina Verstl in her paper at the EBC’s “Beer, Nutrition and Health” symposium that for as long as brewers continue to engage in the production of these beverages, they cannot expect that their claims “beer is good for you” are considered trustworthy.