| Prehistoric Ireland Archaeologists have just uncovered evidence of the world's largest prehistoric brewery - in Ireland. After four years of research, which took them from Belgium to Bavaria to investigate ancient beer-making methods, archaeologists Declan Moore and Billy Quinn have found evidence of microbreweries across Ireland, which predates the 1759 foundation of the Guinness brewery by several thousand years. The team has now recreated Bronze Age brewing methods and produced a modern version of the ale, which the ancient Celts would have drunk by the beaker after a hard day's hunting and gathering. The research, which is to be published in Archaeology Ireland magazine next month, focuses on the 4,500 fulacht fiadhs ( pits or recesses), which date from 1,500 BC and are dotted across the island nation. Studies of residues found prehistoric sites in the Far East have dated beer back to 5,000 BC but Moore and his colleagues claim the proliferation of fulacht fiadhs in Ireland suggests ancient brewing on an unprecedented scale that easily was the most widespread brewing industry in the prehistory world. More Taxes- Automatically! The Australian hotel industry says patrons should expect to pay more for a schooner of beer due to an increase in the Commonwealth's beer excise duty. The Australian Hotels Association is critical of the system, which it says provides for an automatic twice-yearly increase in tax. All of which proves politicians are the same everywhere in the world. |
| Thai One On New York City-based International Beverage Holdings USA announced the U.S. availability of Chang Beer, Thailand's No. 1 selling beer. Newly formed IBHL USA is the exclusive importer of Chang and is supporting the U.S. introduction of the super premium import with a powerful marketing campaign for on-premise and off-premise customers with a keen focus on the growing number of more than 5,000 U.S. restaurants that serve Thai and Asian Fusion cuisine. According to the company, "Chang is an extremely smooth, crisp and full-bodied premium 100% malt lager that is, delicious, and the perfect accompaniment to flavorful Asian cuisine". And of course there's even a Chang Light. |
Feature News from beernexus.com
| Will Work For Beer The average worker in India has to work for six hours to earn enough money to buy a beer. His counterpart in Colombia must work for one hour and 12 minutes, and in South Africa, the average worker has to work for just over an hour to buy a beer. But if you're an average worker living in Italy, you'd have made enough money to buy a beer after just nine minutes. If you're in the US, it would take one minute longer - at 10 minutes. The information from the 11 countries in the chart comes from SABMiller, which has operations in each of these countries. Although the data provides a useful measure of the affordability of beer in each of these countries, it does not provide a definitive insight into the comparative cost of labour or the comparative cost of beer. It is likely that the relatively low price of beer in China reflects not so much high wages as management's willingness to accept low margins to gain market share. And in Italy the relatively low price of beer not only reflects high average earnings but management's desire to make inroads into the wine-drinking culture in that country. Tax plays a huge role in the price of beer. The government's attitude to tax on beer can reflect any number of policy perspectives. Governments in some former Soviet Union countries kept taxes relatively low to encourage low-alcohol beer consumption in preference to high-alcohol vodka consumption. In other countries, including South Africa, beer and cigarettes make huge "sin tax" income for the state. Minutes worked to buy a beer India - 369 Colombia - 72 South Africa - 65 Romania - 34 Poland - 28 Hungary - 26 China - 25 Slovakia - 16 Czech Republic - 12 United States - 10 Italy - 9 |
 |
| |
 |
