Schefenacker AG moves to Britain

The smaller breweries are very uch under threat from the big boys like Budvar, Plzen or Staropramen.
My faves are Nektar from Strakonice and Chodovar from Chodovar Plana.

But in terms of variety it can be a bit samey true though DO try the porter-ish dark beers.


Errrrrm Guinness?

Guinness is as originally Irish as the woodman's axe. Now belongs to DIAGEO - a British company. Most beers consumed in Ireland are foreign anyway. This is not the case in Germany. Here, only freaks order Heineken or Budweiser. If they can find it!

Ah so it just comes down to the company that owns it then, well done very convincing.

Actually they're under threat from international brewing conglomorates. Pilsner Urquell (Plzen) is itself owned by SABMiller and Staropramen by InBev (formerly Interbrew). Those are the companies threatening the beer scene in the Czech Republic.

Budvar is state-owned and seems safe for the moment.


Being famous says nothing about quality...

Hardly. Every single type of beer made is also brewed in the US. Every. Single. Type. Slag off the mass-production breweries all you want (whilst drinking your InBev-tuned Stella or Boddie's, of course), the fact is that brewing made a come-back in the US more than 20 years ago. US breweries now win more than half of all awards given out internationally, like the Australian IBC and the World Beer Cup. These are international events, not American, and with international judges. Americans even beat the Belgians at brewing spiced beers.

Brooklyn Brewery's Weizen is better than many Bavarian weizens, and if you ever drank a Dogfish 8-hour ale you'd never settle for any other ale again.

Deal with it.

woof.

Agree, there are some great beers brewed in the US (I've "dealt with it"). The reason they aren't counted on that arbitrary list that I quoted is that they are mostly British, German or Belgian styles of beer.

True but being an unknown brand doesn't automatically make it nice either.

hook norton 12 days. ohhh, back in the uk soon and looking forward to hunting it down.

Yes, you're right on that.

My favourite Slovak brewery, Zlatzy Bazant (Golden Pheasant) was bought be Heineken and the quality of the beer has declined as a result imvho.

What happens then too is that you go into a Zlaty Bazant pub and just want the local beer but they try and sell you a Heineken etc. Grrrrrrr...

Well we seem to have diverted another Johnny Norfolk moan and bitch about germany onto something much nicer. Cheers!

Diageo - well done very convincing - what's your point? What's convincing? Ireland doesn't rank in the list of big-country brewers. It's a has-been. Deal with it. They only real Irish beers nowadays are brewed by micro-breweries. Everything else is foreign-owned.

As opposed to what other style? The coffee and chocolate beers? It's popular among beerdom's hoi polloi but few real people drink that shit regularly. There are only so many directions you can go with beer.

woof.

Guinness is British. Don't believe all that Bord Fáilte shoite... Ya want proper Irish beers? Go to the Porterhouse!

This must be one of the funniest posts I ever read. I suppose next you going to say that British cuisine rates amongst the best in the world!?

Answer one question: If British beer is so great, why does everyone drink Stella and Carlsberg?

Marketing, image, social class, availability etc etc
There are a whole bunch of reasons.

Because the British have a complete inability to judge quality. It's the same with a whole host of other products. Take cheese for example. Britain produces some of the best cheeses available, but most Brits are happy with the plastic cheddar from Tesco. Add bread, cider, milk - almost anything you want to that list.

The British are also very easily swayed by popular thought. So the conventional wisdom that real ale tastes of vinegar and is drunk by old men, while almost universally false, nonetheless disuades most people from even trying it. Even people who regularly drink London Pride or Greene King IPA will shy away from trying a beer from a brewery they haven't heard of. So how will you persuade a devoted Fosters drinker to try something different?

So quality isn't very important then? C'mon, only old, senile geezers waiting to keel over try and hasten it by drinking room-temperature swill.

Marketing predominantly, as it achieves the sale of a reduced alcohol brew with less tax at a higher price and therefore a higher margin.

that makes me a senile old geezer. damn.

on a recent (last 6 months) stag do in oxford, at least 50% of the guys were drinking hairy arsed ale. i think there is a definite shift towards it in the 30+ male demographic.

It's the same in Ireland. People stick slavishly to their 'usual' beers. This "mine's a Carlsberg" rubbish does my head in. As if there was nothing else!

Next one is Britain ranks alongside Switzerland and France as one of the best cheese producers in the world!?

The rest of your list is a bit silly. Sorry.

I rest my case! Thanks for that.

Of course, most beer is drunk by younger people, and real ale is no different. Nor is it served at room temperature, but rather cellar temperature. Cool not cold -- so you can still taste something. Same in Belgium and Germany (Kellerbier). And as for the 'swill' part; well, I give up. Just try some next time you're in the UK and then report back.

Wikipedia: British cheese

Don't confuse ignorance with fact.

It makes you a downright bad Scotsman! Yeah, well, the British are not renowned for having the best taste-buds. Which is probably a result of the bad ale and food.

great british cheeses - stilton, crowdie, crumbly lancashire. it's got a few imo.

oi, cheeky get! oh yes, another great british, or is that scottish export... the water of life

You've just proven that there are a fair amount of cheeses. I wasn't arguing that. Of course I know there are different English cheeses. Fact is though, are they all good cheeses? Another fact, France, according to Wikipedia has between 350-400 types of cheese. Way more than Britain.

now, that I agree with you on you wannabe Sassenach!

Well, my wife whilst on one of her many business trips to SA, was treated to some kind of fried worm/caterpillar that was hailed as a local delicacy. She hated it, (along with Joburg and Capetown), so I do not think a SA can really criticise the cuisine in the UK. (By the way, my brother worked in both places too and thought the food and country were "poo")

Nice to see the Deutsch and SA economy flourishing along with that of the UK

By the way, just in case you think they stayed at the local YMCA they stayed here:

http://johannesburg.hotelguide.co.za/johan...lo-gauteng.html

No, the crocodile tail, hippo steaks etc etc were crap too.

If you visit Birmingham try the Wellington Real Ale Pub on Bennetts Hill in the city centre.

That's exactly what I'm doing. Went all over the place trying to find some good beer. Tried shitloads. I'll give it to you. You do have a lot more variety than one at first believes there to be. But it's still crap. All of it.

ohhhh no it's not.

Impossible.

Funny, you should mention Birming'am. Will give it a try when I go visit the mates. Am always prepared to be pleasantly surprised...

Only problem is if I'm seen not to like it, I may just get my head beaten in...

So, we came full circle. Now, what abut car-mirror-companies allegedly moving to UK?

Yeah, Cape Town is a huge craphole! Joburg I can agree with you on. Yeah, the food is also absolute shite. I don't know where you were, but I have eaten crocodile tail or hippo steaks or seen it on offer.

As for mopani worms, no one eats them because they taste nice. It's just a test to see if you're prepared to eat a worm. I hope she ate it alive. Tastes like peanut butter. But yes, south African food is pretty close to british food so it's pretty shit.

Same with me, liked some of them better than others, but really didn't get around to really LIKE one. Ended up drinking cider instead (which I really liked)

As far as I can see, the operations and management are not going, only the headquarters. What does that actually mean then? I mean, how can headquarters and management be in 2 different places? Maybe it's just going to be a holding.

Very easily and its not uncommon.

In the same way companies can be registered in Lichtenstein, Sark, Cayman Islands etc. but not really have any physical presence there.

Dunno the restuarant but it was one she was taken to by the some director of SA airways so I do not think it was Mcdonalds or the like (but I think she thought that she would be better off in Mcdonalds ) I do know that they sold brandy and whiskey at around 150 pounds (not rand) a glass though(not that it matters as my wife does not drink)

Anyway, my father-in-law built his own company over here and ran it for over 30 years before he sold it to Dachser. He thinks that the best place in Europe to open a new company, taking everything into consideration, is the UK. Given that he started with 3 employees, built it up to around 300+ and had many major household brand names as customers, I think I would tend to err on the side of his opinion rather than the pontificating theorists on this forum (no disrespect intended as everyone is entitled to an opinion )

That's what I meant by a holding. But the UK wouldn't make sense unless it was one of the Channel Islands. But usually German companies either set up holdings in the Netherlands or Switzerland, not in the UK. Either way, it's not going to make much difference to the company in the way JN would like us to believe.

If you read the article it says their debt is owned by UK hedge funds and creditors get a better deal in the UK than in Germany if the company goes under. Possibly the hedge fund has made this a condition of not foreclosing?