Beer News from Around the Globe

I have been unable to confirm this with a secondary source, but a recent report on US cable television's Food Network maintained that the Rolling Stones have sold the right to their song, "Paint it Black," to a New Zealand brewing company. The report, filed by Bill Boggs on the evening news show, In Food Today, claimed that the song would be used to promote a brand of "black beer," although no mention was made as to whether said brew was a porter, stout, schwartzbier or other style of beer.

The cost to the brewery? All the beer the Stones can drink for the rest of their lives!

(Any members of the Rolling Stones reading this are asked to contact World of Beer to confirm or deny this story.)

One Million Japanese Rogues

Just as I was preparing to file this edition of World of Beer, a press release crossed my desk touting a milestone for Rogue Ales. The event it trumpeted was the shipment of the Oregon brewer's one millionth bottle of beer to the Japanese marketplace.

According to the release, Rogue sent bottle number one on its way to across the Pacific back on May 9, 1994. At the time, the Newport-based brewer had three brands prepared for Japan, each labelled in traditional Japanese script: Brown Bear Beer, Red Fox Amber Beer and White Crane Bitter Beer. That number has now swelled to eleven, with Rogue having added such interesting brews as Chocolate Bear Beer, Kitami Mint Beer and Chitose Hasscup Malt Liquor to its Asian product line.

Acknowledged in the release as assisting Rogue "through the export red tape" was the proprietor of Beer Inn Mugishutei on Hokkaido, Phred Kaufman. A twenty-year resident of Japan, Kaufman is known to readers of several American beer publications, for which he serves as occasional correspondent, and is reportedly a prominent beer authority in Japan. He is also, according to the release, "wild about Rogue Ales."

Congratulations, Rogue, here's to the next million.

The Sydney Morning Herald of January 30, 1998, reports that life couldn't be rosier for Australia and New Zealand's top two brewers, as a particularly hot summer has stimulated beer consumption Down Under. Total beer sales in Australia have risen 0.5-0.7% over the six months ending December 31, 1997, according to numbers cited in the newspaper.

This beer drinking boom has both Foster's Brewing Group and Lion Nathan claiming increased year-to-year sales. Currently, Foster's is said to control 56% of the Australian beer market as compared to Lion Nathan's 41%, although the two companies have of late been engaged in a fierce battle for market share.

According to the Herald, the stock prices of both companies have surged over the last four months, as investors have been attracted by the steady improvement of the beer market and the "ever rife rumours of takeovers by international brewers."

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