Quick Hits: Beer Business

A couple of notes from the world of Business, Beer Business that is. Beer has a HUGE market share in American and Global economic impact with such Business behemoths as InBev, A-B, SABMiller, so its only fair that from time to time I'll try and gather some relevant beer business news.

SABMiller profits up: SABMiller profits are up for the third quarter by an astounding 10%. Some of this is due to purchases of new breweries like the South American Bavaria brand. As the big brewers realize that their beer is not selling as well as they would like, instead of trying to create better beer, they have started a trend of buying up other import breweries or as with A-B setting up exclusive distribution deals as they have with Belgian InBev and Budvar.

Scottish and Newcastle losing their courage: British Brewing giant Scottish and Newcastle have sold their production, selling, and marketing rights of Courage Brewing to Wells and Young Brewing company. Courage produces Courage Best and Directors, not anything that I am familiar with, but I thought it was surprising since its an entity they have had for a while. They will continue to keep 17% interest, but as the article states are shifting focus onto their international brands such as Kronenburg out of Strasbourg, France.

Ukraine losing its Beer Interests: Local Ukraine beer interest are more likely to lose out to Global Beer companies than ever before after Ukraine's fourth largest brewing group Samat announced they were looking into selling. One of the groups that seem interested is of course the above mentioned SABMiller. This is a scary time for national brewing groups as more and more are being bought out by HUGE global companies. Already SUN Interbrew (owned and operated by InBev) owns 37% of Ukraine's beer pie, if SABMiller comes in and obtains the 12% pie that Samat currently owns then you have almost 50% of Ukraine's beer business owned by outside interests, which is never an ideal situation.

New Beer business sight: As I was surfing around looking for information I came across this new website all about the Beer industry with some Market Analysis. It is run by Miller Brewing Company so you can expect some obvious slant, but I'll be checking it out from time to time.