American anti-alcohol lobbyists feel put out that the new US Dietary Guidelines, released earlier this year, would only advise Americans to drink less alcohol for better health. The Guidelines did not include any recommendations for daily limits, in a departure from previous years. If you thought this would reduce the noise in the debate over the validity of the WHO’s “no safe level” claim, you are wrong. A study promoted by some wonks in the Biden administration to investigate alcohol-related health harms – The Alcohol Intake and Health Study – was published independently on 9 June and caused quite a media blow up. Allegedly, President Trump’s administration had omitted from the Guidelines the researchers’ findings that health risks go up with just one drink a day, and that no level of alcohol has a protective effect on mortality.
Worse still, the Trump administration had cut jobs at the Department of Health and sacked the cadre behind this study. One of them now accuses the administration of “side-lining” the research at the behest of the alcohol industry. This is not true. It never had a congressional mandate. And besides, when the findings became known a year ago, a congressional committee concluded that the study was such shoddy biased science that it should not be considered for the Guidelines.
The Biden administration had in fact commissioned an alcohol study for the Guidelines from a panel appointed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM). Guess what, it came to very different conclusions. It said that moderate drinking was healthier than not drinking at all, but also increased the risk of some diseases. Dr Ned Calonge, an epidemiologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz, who led the NASEM study, told media that he stood by its conclusions. “Alcohol research is complex and I am not surprised by different methods producing different results.” He added that modelling studies like the Alcohol Intake and Health Study, which use data to estimate the lifetime risk of diseases and deaths caused by alcohol, also come with potential biases.
The whole affair points to a worrying trend. Even quality US media (see The New York Times, 9 June) will nowadays play up flawed science, if it helps them take a dig at the Trump administration for being indiscriminately anti-science and in the pocket of the alcohol industry. This will not advance the alcohol dialogue in any way.
No more leadership void at Heineken. The Dutch brewer appointed Rafael “Rafa” Oliveira, 52, as its new CEO, ending a months-long search for a successor to Dolf van den Brink, who had led the world’s number two brewer since 2020 before resigning in January. Mr Oliveira will join Heineken for a four-year term, starting 1 October, the company announced on 23 June. Mr Oliveira joins from JDE Peet’s, one of the world’s largest coffee companies, where he has been CEO since 2024. He is the first CEO since 2005 to be appointed from outside Heineken’s ranks. Mr Oliveira will have the task of leading Heineken through a 6,000-strong job cut, to revive sales volumes despite a forecasted decline in global beer demand and to catch up with rival AB-InBev’s investor returns.
Carlsberg India prepares for an IPO, which could value Carlsberg India at nearly USD 3.9 billion and potentially raise USD 700 million. The IPO is expected to be a secondary share sale, with existing shareholders selling a chunk of their shares to investors. Global alcohol companies are increasingly looking to unlock value from their Indian operations. France’s Pernod Ricard, maker of Absolut vodka and Chivas Regal, is also exploring a potential listing of its India business and hired advisers, media reported in April. Critics say that foreign companies are increasingly using India’s booming IPO market to cash out investments and send billions of dollars back to their parent companies rather than raise fresh capital for expansion. According to a recent Reuters analysis, only one in six foreign companies, which have listed their Indian subsidiaries in Mumbai since 2024, raised new funds.
Karnataka leads India’s new alcohol tax experiment byadopting an Alcohol-in-Beverage (elsewhere known as ABV) excise duty structure. Before, alcohol was taxed on a bulk litre-based system. The new policy, effective since 11 May, deregulates strict government-controlled prices. Brewers and alcohol producers now set prices based on market factors and alcohol content within eight price slabs. For decades, alcohol was taxed based on multiple, somewhat arbitrary price slabs (brackets) – 16 altogether. The previous system was criticised for distorting the market and fuelling the consumption of hard liquor. Under the new excise duty system, prices of mild and lager beers with 5 percent ABV have dropped between 20 percent and 25 percent. Prices of premium Scotch whiskeys have also been reduced by 20 percent, while Indian made liquor became more expensive.
Indian state of Telangana owes foreign alcohol firms almost USD 400 million. Indian trade bodies representing Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Heineken and Carlsberg, accused the southern state of Telangana of not paying its bills, owing them a total of USD 392 million, Reuters reported on 12 June. They are not alone. The state is massively in debt. Reportedly, Telangana has 39 million inhabitants who drink 11 litres beer per capita per year. Considering that India’s beer consumption is approximately 2 to 3 litres per capita per year, Telangana is a market brewers can ill afford to ignore. For international companies, India has the lure of being one of the relatively few places where alcohol demand is growing, but the many obstacles to profitability include high taxation and separate regulations in each state, as well as the current outstanding payments.
Belgian beer consumption dropped 3.2 percent in 2025 to 6.2 million hl. Both the hospitality sector and supermarkets recorded lower sales, with volumes down 4.1 percent in cafés and restaurants and 2.6 percent in retail stores. Belgium’s brewers have traditionally relied on beer exports to offset weakening domestic demand, but overseas sales are also slumping. Exports fell to 14.4 million hl in 2025. Demand from outside the EU weakened particularly sharply, with non-EU countries importing 14 percent less Belgian beer than in the previous year. Exports to those markets totalled 1.8 million hl beer.
A long simmering family feud may lead to the sale of Haacht Brewery from Boortmerbeek in Flemish Brabant. According to the newspaper De Tijd (5 June), prospective buyers have already received the prospectus. Apart from its beer business, which stood at 700,000 hl in 2019 (the latest available figure) but has since declined, Haacht owns an extensive real estate portfolio, comprising approximately 270 hospitality properties in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. During the 2022 General Assembly, the family conflict surfaced. Observers said that shareholders have been kept ignorant of the real estate’s value on purpose. The properties appear undervalued in the accounts. Haacht’s holding company has seen its share price fall from EUR 3,500 to EUR 1,500 (USD 1,740) over the past five years. The holding’s revenue has declined and it has been loss-making.
Not the opening Lidl must have hoped for. There was a brawl at the discount retailer’s first ever pub in Dundonald near Belfast on its opening night (17 June). One man was taken to hospital with non-serious injuries. Lidl said an altercation broke out inside its “The Middle Ale” premises when a group of customers were “politely asked to leave” after last orders. Security personnel were involved in the “prompt removal” of the group. How the men could get so violently inebriated on pints which cost between GBP 5.30 (Lidl’s house beer) and GBP 5.80 (USD 7.70) for a Guinness – marginally less than the Belfast average – is hard to explain. The Lidl pub is named The Middle Ale – a pun on Middle Aisles apparently, where Lidl sells frequently changing, limited-stock, non-grocery items. It was officially opened following a GBP 500,000 (USD 660,000) investment to comply with Northern Ireland’s notoriously strict and complex alcohol licensing laws.
Tilray sells craft brewer Atwater to its original owner Mark Rieth, the Detroit entrepreneur who owned and operated Atwater from 2005 until 2020. Mr Rieth originally sold Atwater (then producing 23,000 barrels beer per year and declining) to Tenth and Blake Beer Company, a division of Molson Coors Beverage Company, in 2020. When Molson Coors wanted to dispose of four craft breweries – Hop Valley (Oregon), Terrapin (Georgia), Revolver (Texas), Atwater (Michigan) – in 2024, Tilray took them on for USD 23 million. Throughout, Mr Rieth retained ownership of the brewery’s real estate, which was subsequently leased to Tilray. The sale of the Atwater brand gives Tilray a cash injection and instantly wipes a massive long-term lease liability off its balance sheet.
Lion to cease brewing at Boag’s in Tasmania. It was a train wreck that was waiting to happen: Lion will cease production at the James Boag brewery in Launceston, Tasmania, from November. Kirin-owned Lion announced that the brewery (with an estimated capacity of 900,000 hl beer per year) had been underutilised for many years, running at about 20 percent of potential output, following declining sales. The closure is set to impact the roles of 42 people. After major expansions, Boag’s was making its own beers and key Lion products, including XXXX Gold, and then transporting them across the Bass Strait. However, free capacity in other Lion breweries on the mainland and increasing sea transport charges made this uneconomic. Due to overcapacity in the group, in 2013 already, Lion closed the Swan brewery in Perth, Western Australia. In 2021, it shuttered the West End Brewery in Adelaide, whose peak output was 2 million hl in the 1980s. The move led to nearly 100 redundancies.
Kiwi craft brewers are facing plenty of crises. Now they fear a monopoly in rental kegs. Before, they could rely on the keg pooling and rental services of two companies – Kegstar and Konvoy. At least, brewers did – until Konvoy went into receivership in March 2025. When Konvoy (founded in 2019) was subsequently put into liquidation and owing reportedly nearly NZD 60 million/USD 35 million (it is still operating, though), Kegstar swooped in and offered to buy its assets. The New Zealand Commerce Commission was unimpressed and ruled against the acquisition as it could have led to higher prices. Kegstar has since filed notice of an appeal against the Commerce Commission decision. Craft brewers feel uncomfortable with the idea of there being a monopoly in rental kegs. If keg prices go up, many more breweries could go under, as no one has the money to buy their own kegs anymore.
The Dutch Supreme Court rejected an appeal on jurisdiction by Heineken and its Greek subsidiary Athenian Brewery in the long-running damages claim by Macedonian Thrace Brewery (MTB), producer of the popular Greek beer Vergina. The case stems from a 2015 decision of the Hellenic Competition Commission, which found that Athenian Brewery had abused its dominant position in the Greek beer market for at least 16 years, in order to exclude competitors, including MTB. MTB said (2 June) that the Supreme Court ruling clears the way in the main proceedings for the Amsterdam District Court to issue its final decision on the size of the damages Heineken will have to pay MTB. A ruling is expected this summer.