Tassie beer brawl spills onto the mainland

IT IS no longer just a parochial battle between the Apple Isle's northern Boag's drinkers and their southern Cascade-consuming counterparts. The stoush between Australia's two biggest breweries has moved onto the mainland, and is about to get interesting, and expensive.

The fierce rivalry between Lion Nathan and Foster's cranked up another notch after Lion Nathan threw tens of millions of dollars into Boag's kitty as it takes on Foster's Cascade to be the Tasmanian beer brand of choice on the mainland.

The Boag's trademark has grown 6 per cent since it was acquired by Lion Nathan, which, according to Nielsen AIS, spent eight times more on advertising for Boag's ($7.4 million) than Foster's spent on Cascade ($900,000) in the 12 months to November 2008.

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Budweiser to be produced in Australia?

Coopers, Australia’s largest independently-owned brewer, is hopeful that they will soon be producing America’s most popular beer at their South Australian brewery.

Budweiser, which is the highest selling beer in the world, is imported into Australia and distributed by Premium Beverages - which Coopers has an 80 per cent share of. As they push toward a key sales threshold, the privately-owned business is seeking to arrange a deal with the world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev, to brew the beers in Australia.

“We needed to reach a threshold of more than 500,000 cases … at the rate we’re selling, we could say we would have hit it by mid 2009,” Managing Director, Dr Tim Cooper, told The Advertiser.

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Keeping up with the Coopers

The current economic slowdown is not limiting plans by Coopers Brewery to install new production equipment at its Regency Park brewery.

Coopers' MD, Dr Tim Cooper, said that in the next 12 months, the brewery would be installing a new multi-pack packaging machine, rebuilding the pasteuriser, adding a new filter to the brewery's lager line and purchasing more kegs.

Additional kegs will be ordered to help cope with keg sales volume, which has continued to grow at 4.3% overall for the first six months of this financial year and a startling 19.8% outside Coopers' traditional stronghold of South Australia, Cooper said.

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How beer can benefit your health

Aging and longevity.
Italian research¬ers analyzed data from 34 scientific investigations into alcohol and health conducted in the US, Europe, Australia, Japan and China. The studies involved more than one million people. They found that moderate drinking of any kind—wine, beer or spirits—lowered the risk for death by 18% in women and 17% in men. However, death rates were higher among men drinking more than four drinks a day and women drinking more than two.

Dementia.
Scientists who study memory loss and dementia divide the process into three stages of advancing severity—age-related memory loss, mild cognitive impairment and, finally, dementia. Recent studies: Italian researchers studied 121 people ages 65 to 84 with mild cognitive impairment. Those who had at least one alcoholic drink a day developed dementia at an 85% slower rate than those who didn't drink at all. And Harvard researchers, in a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that moderate drinking decreased the risk for Alzheimer's by 54% compared with not drinking.

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St Arnou Pale Ale

The Pale Ale is the fourth draught beer to be released into bottles by St Arnou, as part of the company’s plan to incrementally release all five draught beers into bottles between January 2007 and June 2009.

“The growth of the Pale Ale category has seen our draught sales across the country grow astronomically,“ sid Nick Allardice, the national manager for the package beer.

“Therefore we knew the time was right to launch it in bottles. We launched it in an amber version of our internationally acclaimed bottle. As the warmer months approach we believe our Pale Ale is a perfectly suited for summer occasions. It is a clean crisp beer with a nice balance of fruit and a hint of honey. “

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Mildura Brewery 'Storm' Cloudy Ale

Another small brewery pumping out tasty beers. Bring them on.

Apparently based on an American Pale Ale style, this rather tasty orange/light brown coloured beer has a quite hoppy aroma, reminiscent more of the Little Creatures style, but not quite as overt. The palate has a citrus character & a richness that I'd more commonly associate with wheat beers. Refreshing simple beer that went perfectly well well chilled with some honey soy marinated pork ribs & roasted sweet potatoes with garlic.

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Bluetongue Australia's Fastest growing Domestic Beer

Bluetongue Brewery had an outstanding year in 2008 and is now the fastest growing domestic Beer in Australia . Bluetongue Brewery set out to produce a range of beers suitable for the Australian palate, delighting with original flavours that tantalise the taste buds with an unexpected and fresh beer experience, which Australians have embraced. The Bluetongue range offers beer lovers the opportunity to experience a truly unique Australian beer from Lager to Light, with some ginger in between. With a new Brewery opening in 2010 – the vision and scope of Bluetongue will continue to thrive.

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Sydney's Biggest Backyard With Bluetongue Beer

This Australia Day, Sydney’s Hyde Park is hosting a huge program of entertainment and activities including live music, a wine garden, a 10K run, the Lord mayors Citizenship Ceremony and the much anticipated Sydney’s Biggest Backyard.

Celebrating the tradition of Australian BBQ’s the Hunter Valley’s Blue Tongue Brewery will feature an entire month of promotions for Bluetongue beer including the official sponsorship of the Biggest Backyard Event on January 26th. Bluetongue Bars will be set up throughout the event giving samples and allowing attendees to meet the brewers to talk about beer and food matching.

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Brewers' droop

Beer usually holds up better than other categories during tough economic times, said Benj Steinman, editor of trade publication Beer Marketer's Insights, and that trend had been holding true during this recession for some segments of the industry.

Beer is "recession-resistant, not recession-proof," Steinman said.

With the latest numbers, it appears demand has been hit hardest in the U.S. and Europe.

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Funds squeeze takes cheer out of beer plans

RYAN Leslie hopes to see his company's "effen" lager in every bottle shop in Australia within three years, but the irreverent Traralgon entrepreneur is having trouble getting credit to bankroll his growth plans.

"We're retarding our marketing and our product manufacturing for fear of not having the funding to support more growth," Mr Leslie says. "Funding is a real Achilles heel for us."

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Light beer tax cut could cull violence

Light represents less than 7 per cent of the packaged beer market and has been in freefall for years, with no sign of this trend changing.

Part of the problem is that beer drinkers are switching back towards full-strength (or high-alcohol) beers, particularly the so-called premium beers -- the fastest growing beer category.

Barely one in five male drinkers nominates light as their preferred drink.

At present, the tax on a standard drink of light beer containing 2 per cent alcohol is 19 cents.

This is almost four times higher than the tax per standard drink on cask wine, containing 12.5 per cent alcohol, which is only 5c.

Put another way, the tax on a stubby of light beer is 20c while the tax on a glass of cask wine is only 5c a standard drink.

A change to the tax system -- scrapping the tax on light beer -- gives us our best chance of encouraging drinkers to switch to low-alcohol products.

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Coopers provides another excuse not to mow the lawn...

Australia’s largest ‘boutique’ brewery Coopers, I learned this week, has reported a noticeable rise in sales of home brewing kits since July this year when the global economy commenced its turning turtle act. Sales are up 8% by volume, driven mainly by a 26% rise in the international range, at the premium end of its home brew line-up.

Now 8% may not seem a lot at first glance, but bear this in mind: Coopers is the world’s largest producer of home brew kits with 19 different beer styles, including lager, draught, stout, real ale, bitter, dark ale and ginger beer.

But Scott says I’m wrong (about the ease and result, that is). It’s all very easy and the results are of a high quality: “Once (beginners) understand how quick and simple the process is, most soon move to making better quality beers, particularly when they realise that they can make premium quality beers for only 35 cents per stubbie.”

Hmmm, with that kind of cost saving your average Aussie beer drinker would be able to employ a lawn mowing contractor every fortnight - AND still save money to please the other half...

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One pint of beer? That'll be $15, please

IT'S blue-collar Grange Hermitage: Almost as expensive, it comes in a large chilled glass with a frothy head.

It's also known as beer.

And if you think you're getting less change at the end of every round -- you're right.

The price of a brew is breaking records in Perth.

At the Belgian Beer Cafe a large, fully imported Hoegaarden, Leffe Blonde or Leffe Brune will set you back $15.30 a pint.

And that doesn't include a $5 deposit on the glass.

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Beverage giants face a year of change

IN 12 months those left standing in the Australian beverage sector will be talking about how 2009 was the year in which everything changed.

Ownership of the two biggest softdrink makers, Coca-Cola Amatil and Schweppes, is set to change hands, while Foster's may make a company-changing decision on the fate of its wine division and arch-rival Lion Nathan is looking to diversify into non-alcoholic beverages.

Meanwhile, global wine and spirit giant Constellation -- owner of the Hardy's and Leasingham brands -- is downsizing its Australian operations and overall domestic wine production is running well ahead of demand, creating a seemingly bottomless lake of unsold plonk that can only be sold at fire-sale prices.

Just to raise the stakes, the economic downturn now threatens to derail the long-running "premiumisation" trend that has seen drinkers switch to ever-more expensive fluids.

As the biggest player in Australian booze, it is fitting that Foster's will get the ball rolling, with chairman David Crawford pledging to make an announcement on the fate of the wine division by mid-February.

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