The scene is a familiar one: women and men decked out in traditional dirndls and lederhosen while they swig steins of beer to the toe-tapping tune of oompah bands.
updated: Fri Oct 21 2011 07:14:00
CNN's Juliet Mann talks to the Head of Western Europe for Heineken, Didier Debrosse.
As European consumers shift their drinking habits away from bars and into their homes, industry giants such as Heineken are looking at ways to adapt.
Not every travel adventure involves tracking wild animals or hanging off a mountain. Some feats of endurance come in the form of festivals, and Munich's Oktoberfest is no exception. This annual beer-soaked event is under way now, but a visit to the charming Bavarian town of Munich is a treat year-round.
Alcohol sales climbed with little interruption throughout the recent recession, and have continued to expand in recent months.
Lawmakers can't agree on anything except ... beer.
I like beer. I like a cold beer on a hot day and a warm beer on a cold day and have learned to like -- smuggling head-covered cans onto golf courses -- a warm beer on a warm day. As a Minnesotan, I can also enjoy a very cold beer on a very cold day, an activity called ice fishing.
Where better to while away the afternoon than a communal table at one of these beer halls and gardens, from an old-time Bohemian favorite to a newcomer with all Asian brews.
The chill of fall is in the air, pour some beer in your glass. Germany's Oktoberfest isn't the only outlet for beer lovers this season. Check out these five beer festivals across the United States.
Turns out booze isn't recession-proof.
At Lutz Tavern in Portland, Ore., the beer-drinking crowd goes through about 20 to 25 cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer on a Friday night. "It's our No. 1 seller, no questions asked, hands down," says Lilias Barisich, whose family has owned the bar since 1954.
Another round of toasts and exclamations of "hajiu" sounded out around me. I took a sip and set down my small glass of Tsingtao beer as my new friends downed theirs and refilled. Our seafood dinner, perched on the single cluttered table of a tiny antique shop, was punctuated regularly by such moments.
Another round of toasts and exclamations of "hajiu" sounded out around me. I took a sip and set down my small glass of Tsingtao beer as my new friends downed theirs and refilled. Our seafood dinner, perched on the single cluttered table of a tiny antique shop, was punctuated regularly by such moments.
When it comes to taking spirited vacations, wandering a vineyard falls flat in the face of handcrafted brew. With more than 1,500 breweries across the United States, beer is not just a drink -- it's a destination.
New Belgium Brewing Co. likes to do things differently.
The St. Louis beer scene has evolved from its Budweiser roots and now centers on atmospheric pubs that brew their own beer for patrons and, sometimes, local retailers.
Like the Danes themselves, Copenhagen's nightlife is generally relaxed, although not without its surprises.
Whether you're into exclusive bars, dingy dives or the dubious pleasures of a sweaty moshpit, Seattle has plenty to keep you entertained.
The other night I found my way home, a little tipsy after an evening in the Belgian town of Bruges. I'd been at my favorite bar in town, the 't Brugs Beertje, where not only did I get schooled in the many varieties of local beer, but also learned a few things about modern-day Belgian life.
The pending acquisition of Anheuser-Busch has left some Americans crying in their beer over the loss of iconic brands like Budweiser to Belgian-based InBev. But the $52 billion acquisition is in keeping with this quarter's surge of international companies buying U.S. players. In the second quarter, acquisitions of American-owned companies by foreign businesses tallied $130.2 billion, making it the highest total for any second quarter recorded and 29 percent higher than the 2007 period, according to research firm Dealogic.
High-alcohol brews, known in the trade as big or extreme beers, are among many craft beers that are grabbing a growing market share in the United States
Ruthless cost-cutting is what made Belgium-based InBev the world's biggest brewer
Philip McClary was grilling out at his home in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday night when he heard hometown brewer Anheuser-Busch would be bought by the Belgian company InBev.
At the stroke of midnight, American beer drinkers were no longer breaking the law when they broke open a beer.
The recipe for the Boston Beer Company's Samuel Adams Boston Lager brand was stored in James Koch's attic since the 1800s by his great-great grandfather.
Sometimes, a hobby can take on a life of its own. That's what happened to Sam Calagione of Lewes, Delaware. He began brewing beer at home in 1993. Two years later, that avocation blossomed into a full-fledged business: Dogfish Head Craft Brewery.
Colorado boasts 44 independent breweries.
Michael Jackson, a leading world beer critic who praised the brews of Belgium and acknowledged he would never be as famous as "that Michael Jackson," has died. He was 65.
A 23-year old Serb was found dead and half-eaten in the bear cage of Belgrade Zoo at the weekend during the annual beer festival.
Nearly 30 years ago Graham Mackay joined the South African Breweries - now called SABMiller since its acquisition of American brewer Miller in 2002. The world's second-largest brewer (by volume) boosted revenue and operating profits by more than 20 percent last fiscal year, despite another lackluster performance by its U.S. operations.
Produce TV spot pairing beautiful woman with beer-swilling schmo. Have schmo ditch woman for cold beer. Presto! Instant (and yawningly typical) beer marketing campaign. "In general the beer industry doesn't get too clever," says Harry Schuhmacher, publisher of Beer Business Daily (beernet.com), an online trade journal. Indeed, the U.S. beer industry has been flat, shipping 181 million barrels of brew in 2006, virtually the same as a decade ago.
Warren Buffett famously remarked that when brilliant management tackles an industry with terrible economics, it's usually the reputation of the industry that remains intact. His insight helps expla...
On weekends Borough Market draws some 70 organic farmers, artisanal producers, world-class bakers and gourmet food importers from all over the world.
Every fall the nation's best beer-tasting room is at Denver's Great American Beer Festival. Here are three little guys who won gold medals.By Matthew Terranova, FSB Magazine
Normally, I don't drink beer before 5 on a workday. But it's Tuesday at 3:30, and I'm making an exception. Not because the world is too much - isn't it always? - but because FSB has tasked me with ...
FSB gets a taste of why business is booming at craft breweries.By Christopher S. Stewart, FSB Magazine
As baseball gives way to football and local Oktoberfests start springing up all over the country, autumn becomes yet another good time to break open a beer.
Downtown Salt Lake City is not the world's easiest place to operate a bar. Mormons dominate the population, and although some Mormons do consume alcohol, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Sa...
Six ales were selected as finalists in this year's Great British Beer festival. Here Roger Protz, editor of the Good Beer Guide and one of the chief judges, gives his appraisal of the winners.
"It's a resiny, floral, spicy hymn to the hop," says Roger Protz, reverentially holding his glass at eye level, so that the light of a London summer evening sparkles through the liquid.
With St. Patrick's Day and March Madness soon upon us, Americans probably don't need any more reasons to toss back a few beers. But we'll give you some anyway.
"Probably the most intense and serious beer I have ever tried," enthuses one blogger. "Unique in every possible way," raves another. "You can smell it a mile away! This stuff is psycho!" trumpets a third.
First there were macrobrews.
The Kenth brewery in Ystad, Sweden, is anything but a giant corporation.
For centuries, the beer faithful have made pilgrimages to places like London, Brussels and Munich in search of the perfect pint.
Heineken said Friday that it will introduce a new light beer, with fewer calories and carbohydrates, to compete in the highly spirited U.S. beer market.
There's a new No. 1 in the world of beer, and it's a strange brew--part Belgian, part Brazilian, with a Mississippi CEO who has little experience in the business and a leading brand named Stella, n...
After 30 years of hard work and trial and error, brewmaster Axel Heiliger says he has come up with a way to save the beer industry time and money.
Ah, autumn, when a man's thoughts turn to drink.
Whether it's because of low-carb diets, cool summers or a switch to cocktails and wine, the beer market is going flat.
For five generations, the men in the Koch family became brewmasters. Koch began his career as a consultant, but in 1984 he founded Boston Beer Co., maker of Samuel Adams. It's now the sixth-largest...
As America toasts its founding, pause to consider beer's role in the history of the Republic.
A brewery brouhaha has shifted from the ad room to the courtroom.
When Dereck Gurden pulls up at one of his customers' stores -- 7-Eleven, Buy N Save, or one of dozens of liquor marts and restaurants in the 800-square-mile territory he covers in California's Central Valley -- managers usually stop what they're doing and grab a notepad.
Russian troops have retrieved 10 tons of beer trapped under Siberian ice, the Itar-Tass news agency has reported.
When Dereck Gurden pulls up at one of his customers' stores--7-Eleven, Buy N Save, or one of dozens of liquor marts and restaurants in the 800-square-mile territory he covers in California's Centra...
When engineer Jeff Lebesch and his wife, Kim Jordan, a social worker, quit their jobs in 1992 to start a brewery, they had several goals. Chief among them were to make great beer and to become lead...
Maybe we expect too much from our business leaders. Certainly they have plenty to worry about--an edgy economy, a woeful Wall Street, a snooping SEC--without everybody jumping down their throats wh...
August is a particularly good month for drinking beer, although I must say the other 11 aren't bad either. Which is why beer has always been a pretty good business. Yes, there are concerns about te...
Lizardhead Brewing Co. CORTEZ, COLO.
We'd never chug cabernet from a bottle, but Americans think that it's different with beer. John Travolta, leaning languidly against the bar in Urban Cowboy, captured our odd romance with longnecks....
Sometimes a great notion is only that--an idea. But truly great ideas are more. Just ask anyone who has implemented one successfully. We did, and we discovered that making a real business out of an...
We'll grant that the University of California at Davis may not be the first response that springs to mind in answer to the question "What is the best B-school in the country?" But if you're talking...
It would be like finding out that the Mona Lisa was Dutch. Or that a Spice Girl was Russian. In one of those signs that the globalization apocalypse is truly upon us, Germany's largest beer baron i...
Like most college students, I drank my share of beer back in the day. A lot of that beer was Utica Club, a regional brand made by the F.X. Matt Brewing Co., a small, family-run operation in Utica, ...
To complete this list of the world's most admired companies, FORTUNE consulted a select group of experts--senior executives and outside board members of companies in each of the industries included...
Imagine a betoqued, heavily accented chef presenting an haute five-course feast--and eschewing his excellent wine cellar for beer. Try very hard, because it's becoming a common image in serious res...
The betting odds stood as high as 25 to 1 against Evander Holyfield when he entered the ring last November to take on Mike Tyson. Detractors were saying the 215-pound Atlanta resident was too nice,...
Making a buck at craft brewing has been as easy as falling off a barstool the last few years. So Wall Street is now bellying up for a couple of IPO brewers. They'd better start chugging; the party ...
What's the ultimate way to ensure that your product meets the idiosyncratic tastes of today's demanding consumers? Some San Francisco entrepreneurs think they've got the answer: Let the customers m...
So-called microbreweries, each producing less than 50,000 barrels a year, are really foaming. While the overall beer market has been essentially flat for the past decade, production at micros and b...
To get a taste for the crazy ways marketers must compete for today's finicky consumer, stroll through the beer section of your local retailer. You'll see Icehouse, a successful new upscale beer fro...
Most new-product manufacturers would kill for the instant name-brand recognition of Miller Brewing, General Motors, or Coca-Cola. But these companies are finding that their greatest asset can somet...
Who needs politicians to create world trade agreements? North American beermakers are practically drafting a trade treaty of their own, making deals north, south, and elsewhere as globalization of ...
The beer business may be flat, but the sales of the so-called microbreweries bubbled up last year some 40%. No longer defined solely by size, a microbrewery today is a small-scale beermaker that us...
When it comes to attracting investors, regional beermaker Portland Brewing has a novel approach -- this dividend's for you. Each of the company's 600 shareholders receives a card worth a free pint ...
American cars and supercomputers may be a hard sell, but the Japanese are confirmed fans of U.S. beer, quaffing ten million gallons of it last year. Enter the tiny (seven-employee) Brooklyn Brewery...
Those 60-hour weeks can really wear down a manager, even in the soothing environs of Vermont. So Fred ''Chico'' Lager, 35, is retiring as CEO of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, the $60-million-a-year compa...
IF YOU HAVE BEEN BUYING beer for the holidays, you've probably noticed that Santa was being very good to you. In Indianapolis, Miami, and Corpus Christi, Texas, you could buy cases of Miller or Coo...
BIG, EXPANSIVE Alan Bond -- Australia's grand acquisitor -- said ''g'day'' in 1988 to anything that wasn't nailed down. First he bought Bell Group, a broad-based conglomerate in Perth, in part from...
The heat is equatorial, your gullet is a mini-Sahara and you'd give your right Reebok for an ice-cold beer. But you have a meeting right after lunch, and you'd rather not show up sudsy-brained. So ...
VINOD KHOSLA often leaves people speechless when he says he retired at 30 to spend more time with his wife. Emigrating from India at 21, he received an MBA from Stanford University at the age of 25...
IT'S EARLY EVENING at the sprawling Missouri farm of August A. Busch III, and his after-work ritual is just beginning. In the family room the 50-year-old chief executive of Anheuser-Busch Cos. abst...
NONALCOHOLIC BEER, once dismissed by lovers of the real stuff as a pale potion without a punch, is coming out of its corner for another round. Brewers are introducing brands they say taste better, ...
ADOLPH COORS CO., once considered a flashy lightweight in the beer business, has pushed its way through the crowd and is taking a seat at the bar. As recently as 1984 the Golden, Colorado, brewer w...
IF YOU HAVE THOUGHT about it at all, you probably thought Guinness was the last word in stout -- the opaque, dark beer with the creamy white head and the sturdy, bitter taste. But Heineken, the Net...
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