Brewing industry news 2/11/11...

• TAP: $45.05
• SAM: $93.26
• BUD: $55.99

 Beverages - Brewers 
Composite Value: 662.6

Today's Change: +1.07%

This section, from Yahoo! Finance,  shows the beer industry closing prices for this week.

There is certainly alot on the table to talk about this week..... To start things off, August Busch IV was able to have a sigh of relief this week after the recent allegations he was facing involving the death of his 27 year old girlfriend Adrienne Martin(both shown in picture to the right). After nearly two months of speculation in Saint Louis, prosecutors laid their accusations to rest determining that the Busch's girlfriend had high amounts of both cocaine and oxycodone in her system and is believed to have taken a fatal overdose. This news finally relieved the Anheuser-Busch heir of any charges that had originally been sought after as many had originally been suspecting foul play to be the cause of death for the 27 year old model and girlfriend. At least now he will be able to try to take some new steps forward in his life and the publicity will die down quickly so as to not damage the family, or more importantly the company's image any further.

Meanwhile, in other news, Netherlands based Heineken NV, recently announced the acquisition of five major breweries within the Nigerian brewing market. This recent purchased has caused an overwhelming increase in stock prices for Heineken within the Nigerian Stock Exchange(NSE), as this acquisition is looking to boost the company's market share to over 65 percent of the Nigerian beer market. The reason this is going to prove to be incredibly valuable for Heineken is because the brew market in Nigeria is the second largest beer market in Africa, accounting for over 15 percent of the markets 92 million hectoliters average. Trading in the beer sector within Nigeria rose from 10.9 shares to over 15.8 million shares in just the last two weeks proving there is much interest and certainly many hopeful investors looking forward to what should be a very positive future for that market as well as for the Heineken company.

The fourth quarter has produced some astonishing numbers within the industry as many brewers have released reports showing losses of almost half since this time last year due to the rise in the cost of many key ingredients. This story has been addressed alot lately, but as stocks continue to fall industry wide, I feel it is a very important issue. For one, with costs up on the supplies and ingredients needed to produce our favorite beers we could all be seeing some steep increases on prices as well, especially for many companies within the craft brewing industry because these companies will not have the "buying power" of the industry giants. Fortunately, many of these companies have started to strategize ways to lower the costs of production as a means to keep prices down......at least for as long as possible. Some of the companies have been looking at different promotions to increase desire for their specific product while others have ventured into making different styles of drinks that will require less of the ingredients that are facing inflation costs. MolsonCoors, for one, is looking at releasing a new Miller Genuine Draft lemonade this summer and trying to use advertisements to gain more interest also in Blue Moon. Both SAM and HOOK ( Craft Brewers Alliance-Nasdaq) will follow TAP's lead with the summertime promotions as well.

Lastly, China New Borun Corporation(NYSE-BORN) recently announced the opening of their Daqing Phase III facility. BORN, the leading producer of corn-based edible alcohol in China, is going to be using this new facility to meet the demands of a rapidly growing market within China for the corn-based alcohol. With growths of over 50 percent within their market over the last 12 months, this facility was most definitely a necessity as they have increased sales to over 380,000 tons per annum. Also, along with their existing by-products of DDGS, corn germ, and liquid carbon dioxide, this new facility will allow for the creation of one additional by-product which is corn crude oil. They are expecting with their expanded capacity and current by-products offering they will be able to increase revenue and profit growth in 2011 by substantial amounts as they push forward towards their goal of becoming the world's largest producer of corn-based edible alcohol.