Bold micro brews fill beer pallets

Embarrassingly for the big brewers such as Anheuser, Miller Brewing and Molson Coors, craft brewers are booming as they profit from a demand for beers to carry bold flavours.

One-third of the roughly 1,400 US craft brewers lifted sales by more than 10 per cent last year, according to the Brewers Association.

Craft beers make up only 3.5 per cent of the total beer market but have grown steadily over the past decade, notching up a record 7.2 per cent sales growth rate last year on average.

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Last minute Parliamentary Bill excludes beer...

On the last day of Parliament a bill was slipped through the House and into Select Committee. It went unnoticed by virtually everyone – including me. I only picked it up when the Maori Party put out a press release on the subject.

The Bill is called the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Bill. It will be considered by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee. There is no closing date listed for submissions.

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Cheaper liquor as chains keep growing

Liquor figures
* Take-home liquor market is worth more than $1 billion.
* Supermarkets sold $455 million in wine and $252 million in beer so far this year.
* Traditional liquor stores sold $193 million in wine and $140 million in beer and about $200 million in spirits.
* About 3100 people are employed in the retail liquor industry, excluding supermarkets.

Retailer statistics
* Liquor Centre Group: franchise, 130 stores.
* Super Liquor: franchise, 102 stores.
* Liquorland: franchised subsidiary of DB Breweries, 80 stores.
* The Mill Liquorsave: managed privately, 41 stores.
* Liquor King: managed and owned by Lion Nathan, 40 stores.

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Lion Nathan affirms growth in Australia beer, NZ flat

Australia's second-largest brewer Lion Nathan Ltd affirmed yesterday that it expected earnings growth from its Australian beer business this financial year, while New Zealand earnings would be flat.

"I think the main thing to focus on is that this is one of series of possible options for us in terms of building our business in premium beer."

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Santa Drinking Game

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Top 10 NZ Beers for 2005

		Best in Class	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1	C&B Monk's Habit	2	3	0	0
2	C&B Fuggles	1	2	1	1
3	Emerson's Taieri George	1	1	1	0
4	Emerson's Old 95	1	1	1	0
5=	Galbraith's Grafton Porter	1	1	0	0
5=	Galbraith's Resurrection	1	1	0	0
5=	Mike's Mild Ale	1	1	0	0
5=	Waikato Draught	1	1	0	0
9	Harrington's Big John Special Reserve	1	0	2	0
10=	C&B Buxom Blonde	1	0	1	1
10=	Export Gold	1	0	1	1
10=	Mac's Sassy Red	1	0	1	1

Cheers to a cherry beer

With a cherry beer just for Christmas and a new pale ale that carries a taste reminiscent of just the rim of a well-cooked fruitcake, this is a ripe time for the Invercargill Brewery.

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Binge-drinking an age-old problem

A culture of 24-hour drinking and bingeing on alcohol may not be unique to modern society, say historians.

Experts have uncovered evidence that 12th century Londoners drank ale by the gallon, starting at breakfast time, due to poor quality drinking water.

Looking back only 700 years, London had over 1,300 alehouses - one for every 50 people living in the city.

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Chemists Figure Out What Causes "Skunky Beer"

Many people think beer tastes bad all the time, while others, who enjoy the alcoholic malt beverage, believe it turns "skunky" only when it isn’t handled properly. Now chemists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill say they have figured out precisely what goes wrong with beer to give it that offensive "light-struck" flavor.

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Drinking in New Zealand 1995 National Survey

Consumption

Of those interviewed, 89% of the men and 85% of the women were drinkers.

Men consumed 73% of the alcohol reported in the survey.

The top 10% of drinkers drank almost half of the alcohol, the equivalent of at least 31 cans of beer a week.

Home production of alcohol probably accounts for about 3% of the alcohol consumed.
The median annual consumption reported by male drinkers was 7.4 litres of absolute alcohol. This is equivalent to 500 cans of beer a year, or a little over nine cans a week. (Survey respondents tend to under-report consumption.) The median is the level that half the sample is above and half below. This measure best indicates the behaviour of the 'typical' drinker.]

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Alcohol has saved more lives than it's cost, says expert

"Basically alcohol reduces heart disease and strokes because it thins the blood. This was first discovered not by alcohol experts but by heart specialists who started having to take alcohol consumption into account in their studies.

"In Australia, New Zealand and Canada we have found there were more lives saved from moderate drinking than were lost through excess drinking."

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Hoegaarden to close

Brewing giant brewer InBev announced today that it would close Belgium's famous Hoegaarden brewery, long associated with classic "white beer."

InBev, based in nearby Leuven and the largest beer producer in the world, said belt tightening would eliminate 232 jobs.

Production of Hoegaarden Grand Cru and other beers will move to InBev Jupille brewery in the south of Belgium, although the storage and bottling facilities will remain open.

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