27 October 2010

Last drinks for Foster’s

Perhaps Foster’s brewers should have heeded folk wisdom and not mixed their beer with wine. As the saying goes, “Beer before wine, you’ll be fine, wine before beer, sick for a year.” Everybody knows that a wine hangover is absolutely THE WORST. It means Death – without actually passing into the next world. But did they heed this advice? Obviously not. Having drunk themselves silly on over-priced wines, the leading Aussie brewer has suffered from a booming hangover for near on five years. They have tried every cure, including swinging a possum by the light of the waning moon. Still, the big-head blues wouldn’t go away. Now they have sworn never, ever to drink again – and called in sick. Foster’s is preparing a separate stock-market listing of its wine business, Treasury Wine Estates, valued at AUD 3.1 billion on Foster’s books, or less than half what the company spent on wine acquisitions. Once the split is completed, the beer operation will probably be snapped up for a price of over AUD 12 billion. That will be the end of Foster’s as we know it, but, all considered, the only morning-after remedy left to them.

Current issue

Brauwelt International Newsletter

Newsletter archive and information

Mandatory field