September 2016 Brewing Industry News Brewing
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
September 2016 Campden BRI food and drink innovation Brewing Industry Brewing Industry News News Monthly Update Contents Australia ........................ 1 Poland ............................ 5 Belgium ......................... 2 South Africa .................. 5 China .............................. 2 Sweden .......................... 5 Denmark ........................ 2 Switzerland.................... 6 Europe ........................... 3 United Kingdom ............ 6 India ............................... 3 USA ................................ 9 Japan ............................. 4 Venezuela .....................11 Netherlands ................... 4 Vietnam ........................ 12 Nigeria ........................... 4 World ........................... 12 Australia CRAFT-BEER START-UP HAS EYES ON EXPANSION FROM ADELAIDE TO ASIA. http://www.beveragedaily.com, 14 Sept. 2016 (published online). The establishment of a new trading enterprise called Small Beer, which is based in Adelaide, South Australia, is reported. The company buys beer from small independent brewing firms and sells it directly to consumers via the Internet, for delivery to the purchaser's home. It also offers a subscription service for consumers interested in trying new beers, under which mixed packs containing diverse products of Small Beer's suppliers are delivered to subscribers once per month. Initially, it has mainly sold beers brewed in South Australia and the neighbouring state of Victoria, but has begun discussions with a number of prospective suppliers in other parts of Australia. The aim is to benefit both consumers (by enabling them to buy beers which they would otherwise be unable to obtain unless they visited the places where these beers are brewed) and brewing firms (by making their products available to a far larger consumer population than they could otherwise reach). Furthermore, because the list of products for sale on the Small Beer website shows only those beers which are currently in stock, the goods purchased can always be sent out immediately, ensuring that they reach consumers while still fresh. The word "Asia" in the title refers to the fact that Small Beer is already considering the possibility of extending its trading territory beyond Australia into some southeastern Asian countries and Information contained in this publication is confidential to Campden BRI member companies. Copyright © Campden BRI 2016 perhaps as far as China at some time in the future. It is also stated to be considering the possibility of trading in cider as well as beer. Belgium AB INBEV CONTINUES CRAFT BEER SPREE WITH ACQUISITION OF BELGIAN BREWER BOSTEELS. http://www.beveragedaily.com, 12 Sept. 2016 (published online). The acquisition by Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) of Brouwerij Bosteels, hitherto an independent family brewing firm, is reported. It is stated that the firm's brewery in Buggenhout, Belgium, will remain in operation and will continue to be run by its existing management (including members of the Bosteels family) as part of its new owner's international speciality beer division (which also includes several breweries in the USA, originally established by former "craft" brewing firms that have been taken over by AB InBev over the past few years). Bosteels is well known for its speciality beers, including a strong ale called Kwak which is served in a very unusual drinking glass, with a flared upper part and a bulbous bottom, suspended in a specially made wooden stand.The purchase price has not been officially disclosed, but is estimated in this report to be equivalent to around US$225.4 million. BELGIAN BREWERY'S PIPE DREAM BRINGS RELIEF TO MEDIEVAL BRUGES. Brewing IndustryBrewing News http://www.reuters.com, 16 Sept. 2016 (published online). A firm called De Halve Maan (Flemish for "The Half Moon") has had a pipeline laid to carry beer from its brewery in the centre of Bruges, Belgium, to its bottling hall outside the city, about 3 km distant. The construction work took about 5 months, but by then it had taken about 4 years to develop the original concept into a practicable plan. The project cost about 4 million euros; some of the money was provided by the government of the Flemish-speaking region of Belgium (presumably in consideration of the benefits of eliminating the need to transport the beer by road, which required heavy goods vehicles, weighing over 40 t, to pass through streets dating from the Middle Ages and originally intended for use by nothing bigger than a horse-drawn cart), but about 350000 euros came from a "crowdfunding" scheme, in which individuals contributed small sums (up to a maximum of 7500 euros per person) towards the project and will receive their return on the investment in the form of beer, the amount of which depends on the size of each person's contribution. In 2015, De Halve Maan produced about 50000 hl of beer (30% more than in 2014), but could have sold considerably more if production had not been constrained by the difficulty of transporting the beer from the brewery to the bottling hall. As this problem has now been eliminated by the installation of the pipeline, it is predicted that its output for the whole of 2016 will be about 20% higher. The pipeline has sufficient carrying capacity to handle over 4 times the brewery's current output. China CHINESE CRAFT BREWERIES LOOK TO AUSTRALIA FOR PREMIUM WATER SUPPLY. http://www.beveragedaily.com, 5 Sept. 2016 (published online). A company named PH8 is reported to have entered into negotiations with a number of speciality brewing companies (not individually identified in this report) in China about proposed arrangements for supplying Australian mineral water to these firms for use as brewing liquor. The water concerned is obtained from an underground geological formation on the Yorke Peninsula on the coast of South Australia, where it is said to be "filtered naturally through black limestone". It is described as being rich in potassium, calcium and magnesium and somewhat alkaline, with an average pH value of about 8 (hence the company name). It is already being marketed in Australia and other countries as bottled mineral water. ROK STARS TAKES ABK BAVARIAN BEER TO CHINA. http://www.drinks-business-review.com, 6 Sept. 2016 (published online). In 2013 (as was reported at the time), a company named ROK Stars acquired a controlling interest in the brewing company Aktienbrauerei Kaufbeuren, of Kaufbeuren in Bavaria. It then began to develop an international trade (managed via a subsidiary called ROK Drinks) in Kaufbeuren's products, which are exported to several countries under the brand-range name of ABK Beer. It is here stated that ROK Stars has entered into an agreement with a company named REN Distributions, which is based in the UK, to distribute its beers in China (where they underwent successful marketing trials in 2015). Denmark CARLSBERG REVEALS PHYSICAL PROTOTYPE OF GREEN FIBER BOTTLE. 2 http://www.beveragedaily.com, 29 Sept. 2016 (published online) In January 2015, it was reported that Carlsberg, a packaging company called ecoXpac, the Technical University of Denmark and a body called Innovation Fund Denmark had begun to collaborate in a project for the development of processes for making fully biodegradable beverage bottles and closures from renewable raw materials (primarily wood fibres) which can be obtained from environmentally sustainable sources. It is here stated that a prototype of such a bottle was presented at the Sustainable Brands 2016 Conference, which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in the last week of September 2016. A Carlsberg representative has stated that the project was still presenting technical challenges in several areas, including some aspects of the development of the "impulse drying" technology (to be used to solidify the bottle body in the mould which shapes it) as well as of the closure, binding materials to be used in the production process, coatings to be applied to the bottles and inks for printing branded decoration and product information on them. However, it appears that the project has already made significant progress. CARLSBERG "REBREWS" ORIGINAL 1883 LAGER. http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk, 29 Sept. 2016 (published online). Carlsberg has launched a "limited edition" lager called Re-brew, fermented by yeast that was cultured from a bottle of lager dating from 1883 (found in the company's old brewery in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2013) and brewed according to a reconstructed recipe from that time. The yeast taken Brewing IndustryBrewing News from the old bottle was found to be an early specimen of the first pure cultured yeast strain to be used in commercial beer production, which had been isolated and propagated by E.C. Hansen (who worked for Carlsberg and was one of the pioneers of brewing microbiology) and in 1884 became the first brewers' yeast strain to be marketed commercially, under the designation "Carlsberg No. 1". The use of pure yeast strains, obtained by Hansen's isolation and propagation methods, greatly reduced the frequency and severity of quality problems arising from the contamination of brewers' yeast by spoilage microorganisms. A batch of 600 bottles of Re-brew will be sold in the UK through a firm in London called St. Bart's Brewery, to raise funds for the International Centre for Brewing Science (ICBS) at the University of Nottingham in central England. Some of the proceeds will be used to pay the course fees for a brewing science student there. Europe BREWERS ADD INGREDIENT & NUTRITION INFO IN