No sentiment — or sediment for global brewers

Global giants seem to be missing the point that consumers increasingly prefer tasty, malty brews to bland characterless concoctions.

It's not a happy new year for people employed by AB InBev in Britain and mainland Europe. The world's biggest brewer has announced it will cut 10% of its workforce in Belgium, Britain, Germany and Luxembourg "to reflect falling demand for beer".

The cuts will mean 800 jobs will go, with the axe falling most cruelly on Belgium, with 263 workers facing life on the dole there. There's a cruel irony in that decision, as the InBev part of the group was originally the Belgian-based Interbrew, best known for Stella Artois lager.

But when the penny-pinching accountants take over global giants, nothing is sacred. AB InBev has its headquarters in Belgium but it seems that ruthless Brazilian executives, who brought Ambev to the merged group, are increasingly calling the shots.

A spokeswoman for AB InBev said the job cuts reflected the fact that demand for the group's beer "has fallen consistently in recent years".

She added that the group would have to hold talks with workers' unions about the scale of the cuts. That decision was taken after a group of outraged employees at the Jupiler brewery in Belgium held some senior managers hostage for several hours when the jobs cuts were announced.

As well as angering its workforce, AB InBev doesn't seem to grasp the blindingly obvious fact that consumers are increasingly disinclined to drink mass advertised and over-

promoted bland beers. The group's European beer volumes fell by 20% in the first half of 2009.

The spokeswoman said: "European consumers are "drinking differently and AB InBev needs the right commercial focus". And she added that Belgians are drinking "a more di-verse range of premium beer in lower quantities".

It's happening in Britain as well as Belgium. The only growth in our beer sector comes from cask ale. The global giants that dominate British brewing ought to get the message that consumers increasingly want to drink beer with taste, rich in malt and hop character, rather than bland industrial lager.

Coors has responded by introducing a new cask beer, Red Shield, and increasing production of the classic bottled IPA, White Shield Worthington. But Carlsberg's only reaction to the cask-beer revival has been to announce the closure of the Tetley brewery in Leeds, while AB InBev's Draught Bass and Boddington's brands are increasingly hard to find.

Heineken, new owner of Scottish & Newcastle, seems keen on the highly-successful cask brand, Deuchars IPA. But the Dutch giant's track record

of closing breweries and concentrating production in big centres creates the worry that Deuchars could eventually be moved from Edinburgh to John Smith's in Tadcaster.

If you think the notion is absurd that a proud Scottish beer could be brewed in Yorkshire, just think of what's happening to Heineken's Newcastle Brown Ale, which is moving to John Smith's. There's no room for sentiment among global brewers.

Far from learning the lesson that consumers want beer packed with character, things may get worse where the brewing giants are concerned. The latest edition of Brewers' Guardian paints a literally frightening picture of beer in the future. The magazine is a technical one and it deals in the main with trends among international brewers.

Some of the conclusions reached by Brewers' Guardian, as a result of recent international conferences, make good sense. In the age of global warming, with an urgent need to save on carbon footprints, it's right and necessary to talk about the need to save on water and to grow better cereals in emerging brewing nations instead of flying supplies of grain round the world.

I'm a great fan of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, but the way in which it's made in export markets doesn't make sense in the modern world. In Africa, a pale beer is made from a local grain, sorghum, which is then blended with black dehydrated syrup manufactured in Ireland and transported to Africa. Surely in this modern age it should be possible to make roasted grain in Africa and save on air miles.

Some of the new methods for making beer are chilling. In Denmark, the Harboe Brewery has developed a beer called Clim8 that is made from 100% raw barley. The brewery has cut back on CO2 emissions by not turning barley in to malt.

That's laudable — except that it's impossible to make beer without malted grain. By turning barley into malt, starch is transformed into maltose, a type of sugar that can be fermented into alcohol.

The only way Harboe can make beer from raw barley is to use bucket-loads of industrial enzymes in the brewing process. That doesn't tickle my fancy and neither do experiments in Japan where soya protein, peas and corn are being used to make what are called "third category" beers that can be developed in countries where barley and other conventional grains do not grow in abundance.

It would be the height of western impudence to tell emerging brewing nations in Africa and Asia how to make beer using locally-grown grain. The worry is that the global brewers, who have already massively cut down on the maturation time for their lagers, will grasp the opportunities offered by "third category" beers to foist them on western drinkers.

Fancy a pint of Budfosterberg made from soya and peas? It could be on bar near you sooner than you think.