This round is on me! |
Merger Mania |
No. 2 U.S. beermaker SABMiller's move to combine American operations with No. 3 Molson Coors will likely be approved even though it will increase market concentration, antitrust experts said. The approval may be a reflection of how much easier it has become for companies to merge under the Bush administration, antitrust lawyers said. Anheuser-Busch, which brews Budweiser, Busch and Michelob, is the longtime U.S. market leader with just under half of all U.S. beer sales. Miller holds 18.7 percent of the market and Coors 11 percent, The rest of the market is shared by imports and microbrewed beers. The proposed merger would give Anheuser-Busch and the new MillerCoors joint venture control over nearly 80 percent of the U.S. beer market. The $400 Beer Carlsberg ads say it's "probably the best beer in the world." At $400 a bottle, it's now the most expensive. The brewer, Scandinavia's biggest, introduced a beer Friday that costs $396.47. The Vintage No. 1 brew will be sold at three Copenhagen restaurants, including Noma, the world's 15th-highest rated restaurant in 2007.The product, costing 357 times more than Carlsberg's main Danish lager brand, has been developed to challenge luxury wines in the gourmet restaurant market Denmark, a country of 5.4 million, has 16 billionaires. The number of billionaires worldwide rose 21 percent last year to 946, Forbes magazine said. |
Britain's beer drinkers have been named the most generous in Europe after research conducted by one of the world's largest brewers found them to be the most likely to pay for a round of drinks. Eighty two per cent of Britons said they were more likely to get a round in for their friends than split the bill, according to figures put together by Miller Brands parent company SABMiller, as part of its Beer Etiquette report. A further 77 per cent said that they would buy someone a drink regardless of whether they thought they would get one in return. The Scottish and Welsh were found to buy Britain's largest rounds, for up to 6.8 and 6.9 people per round respectively. The biggest round in Europe went to the Belgains, who were prepared to buy a round for up to 7.1 people. Germans were found to be less generous, with 90 per cent saying that they would prefer to split the bill and meticulously work out who had what. |
QUICK HITS |
Tap/Cooler Just For You When you're feeling really hot there is nothing like a nice cool beer to get you to the right temperature, the Heineken and Krups LCD-equipped keg / fridge might be the answer. The device has been in Europe for a while but it now looks like they want the Americans to have a taste. It may not work in the US, but Heineken and Krups want to give it a go and have set the price at $400 with an April launch date. Would you want a 5-liter Heineken keg which will keep your beer cold and tasting nice fresh for 30 days? send contributions for On Tap to webmaster@beernexus.com |