What a week it was, the first week in August 2011! As stocks tumbled, Europe’s sovereign debt problems spun again out of control and Standard & Poor’s took the unprecedented step of downgrading the U.S. government’s sovereign credit rating, Molson was the first among the world’s biggest brewers to report second quarter earnings.

Well, great. That’s exactly what brewers needed. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing their beers, pollster Gallup comes along and tells them: “sorry guys, consumers have gone off beer.”

The rumour mongers were gob-smacked. Not Heineken, not SABMiller – it was Japan’s brewer Kirin that managed to clinch a deal with privately-owned beer and beverage company Schincariol.

First Virgin Cola went pfffff. Now Red Bull Cola. Why is it that brand extension colas rarely seem to work? The latest to acknowledge defeat is the Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz, the founder of the Red Bull energy drink company. Thinking that the world was waiting for yet another cola band, this time a “strong & natural” one, Red Bull Cola had its debut in 2008 in the U.S., the home of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola. In mid-July 2011 U.S. media reported that Mr Mateschitz had finally pulled the plug on both Red Bull Cola and Red Bull Energy Shot.

The Siebel Institute of Technology/World Brewing Academy is looking for qualified candidates to join their web-based training team.

The world’s number one wine company Constellation Brands and maker of Robert Mondavi Wines and Svedka vodka said on 30 June 2011 that it plans to cut about 100 jobs, or 2.3 percent of its workforce, as part of a business realignment meant to save money, following the sale of its Australian and U.K. wine businesses.

Following SABMiller’s bid for Foster’s the international rumour mill is working overtime. Call it a coincidence or clever timing: on 21 June 2011, the day SABMiller made overtures to Foster’s and was rejected, Heineken’s CFO Rene Hooft Graafland gave an interview in which he implicitly ruled out a multi-billion dollar counterbid for Australia’s Foster’s Group. But he also said that it’s "better to spend your money on Mexico, Brazil, or Africa or Asian markets."

Is it just idle talk? Or does Constellation really have the financial umph to buy Foster’s former wine division, now listed on the Australian stock market under Treasury Wine Estates? In May 2011 Constellation Brands said they would evaluate an acquisition of Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates if the newly independent Treasury was up for sale.

Doing business in the Caribbean is no walk in the park. The announcement from Antigua Brewery in early June 2011 that it plans to close operations in Antigua and move to St Vincent and the Grenadines with the loss of 42 jobs has invited all kinds of sneers and shrugs from local bloggers who blame their government for this decision.

Just as well the former A-B CEO August Busch IV did not seek re-election as Director of AB-InBev. His legal woes, which have dogged him for the past six months following the death of his girl-friend at his home on 19 December 2010, aren’t going to be over any time soon. On 7 June 2011 St. Louis media reported that a judge had postponed indefinitely a USD 1.5 million wrongful-death lawsuit settlement offered by Mr Busch to the young son of his deceased girlfriend.