Heineken investors are getting restless. JP Morgan downgraded Heineken to a “neutral” from “overweight” rating on 13 May, citing the absence of new management and a lack of strategic clarity as the primary obstacles to near-term stock performance. Heineken’s first quarter 2026 report showed organic sales growth of 2.8 percent, with volumes up 1.2 percent. But, as analysts pointed out, the volume rise was primarily due to favourable timing effects of Easter and Tet and relatively easy year-on-year comparisons. This is another way of saying that things could only get better after Heineken had reported a 2.1 percent decline in overall beer volumes in the first quarter 2025. The key reason for the present downgrade is the lack of a successor for CEO Dolf van den Brink, who announced in mid-January that he is stepping down on 31 May 2026. Many impatient analysts seem to believe that surely, Heineken could have named the incoming CEO before this deadline.
The leadership void is creating a lack of strategic clarity. Under the company’s 2030 strategy, unveiled last year, the new CEO will be tasked with refocusing Heineken’s resources on certain brands and markets, as well as delivering on sales, profit and cost saving targets. As many analysts did not think that Mr van den Brink was up to the task, they now need reassurance that his successor will deliver on the promises – and pronto.
Diageo opens first phase of new EUR 700 million Kildare brewery on 11 May as part of a near EUR 1 billion investment in its Irish operations. Diageo said the new brewery on a greenfield site at Littleconnell, outside Newbridge, represents an investment of almost EUR 300 million (USD 350 million) – 50 percent more than planned when the expansion was first announced in 2022. The project, supported by Enterprise Ireland with EUR 7.5 million (USD 8.8 million) in green funding, created approximately 650 jobs during construction and more than 50 permanent roles. At current capacity, the plant will be able to produce 2 million hl beer, making it the second-largest brewery in Ireland after Diageo’s St James’s Gate. As part of the near EUR 1 billion (USD 1.16 billion) investment between 2020 and 2029, Diageo has already completed work at St James’s Gate and its Belfast packaging site to increase capacity and support the growth of Guinness 0.0. Further work is planned to support the decarbonisation of St James’s Gate.
Brau Union opens microbrewery in Villach (6 May) and puts Kaltenhausen brewery up for sale. “After 12 months of construction, up to 7,000 hl of beer will be produced in villach each year,” media gushed. No mention, though, that the small brewery is replacing a 320,000 hl brewery on the same site, which Heineken’s Austrian subsidiary Brau Union had shuttered in 2024. After the excitement over the Villach opening had died down, Brau Union announced that it is looking for an investor for its former brewery in Kaltenhausen in order to convert the buildings into commercial properties, a hotel and housing. Incidentally, Brau Union stopped brewing in Kaltenhausen in 2011, moving the production of brands like Kaiser and Edelweiss to its breweries in Zipf and Wieselburg. A microbrewery was installed to mainly serve the tenanted taproom, which has remained in operation. It is a mystery why Brau Union did not sell the property after it shut down the brewery. Today, most of the site is sitting empty and the buildings are in a sorry state. Brau Union added that it is seeking a buyer to prevent the buildings from deteriorating further.
Boston Beer is rolling out a range of RTDs sold in “glow-in-the-dark” packaging. The firm said (11 May) that Lytt Electric Coolers will hit “select US markets” later this month, with wider distribution planned during the year. The RTDs are malt-based, containing 15 percent ABV, and come in six flavours. The suggested retail price is USD 3.99 per container. The products are filled into patent-pending, lightbulb-shaped 200 ml plastic bottles. Boston Beer already competes in the RTD segment through brands including hard seltzer Truly and flavoured malt beverage Twisted Tea. The move marks Boston Beer’s first use of plastic packaging and another step deeper into high-ABV, Beyond Beer innovations. Already, more than 85 percent of its volume comes from non-beer brands, the website Brewbound reported. Jim Koch, CEO of Boston Beer, expects Lytt to provide 2.5 times the case-equivalent earnings of his hard seltzer Truly.
Carlsberg Ukraine cut the ribbon on a new canning line at its Lviv brewery on 5 May. The opening ceremony was attended by Carlsberg Group CEO Jakob Aarup-Andersen and the Danish ambassador to Ukraine, Thomas Lund-Sorensen. Mr Jacob Aarup Andersen was quoted as saying: “Ukraine is strategically important to us and has been so long before the war began. While operating conditions have become much more difficult, we continue to see our business in Ukraine as both sound and meaningful.” The new canning line by manufacturer Krones has a capacity of 40,000 cans per hour and will increase the total production capacity of the Lviv plant by 38 percent. It complements the existing keg and PET filling lines.
Carlsberg Ukraine, which is directly owned by Swedish Carlsberg Sverige AB, operates breweries in Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv and Lviv and is among the country’s major brewers. The company employs more than 1,400 people. Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion, Carlsberg has reportedly allocated UAH 4.4 billion (USD 99 million) to the Ukrainian economy. Over the next three years it plans to invest between UAH 1 billion and UAH 1.5 billion annually.
Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman rejected a USD 32-per-share cash takeover offer from rival Sazerac, the Wall Street Journal learnt on 11 May, weeks after talks between Brown-Forman and France’s Pernod Ricard fell apart. Sazerac, which is privately-owned by the fourth generation Goldring family, had submitted a USD 17 billion offer (or USD 32 per share) including debt in April. Brown-Forman trades at around USD 27 per share. The offer looked reasonably attractive. It valued Brown-Forman at 19 times forward earnings, a fifth above industry leader Diageo, the Financial Times said. The rejection of the Sazerac offer comes at a time when the spirits industry is grappling with decreased sales and negative impacts from global trade tensions. Brown-Forman had previously cut jobs, closed facilities, including its Louisville cooperage, and launched restructuring plans in an effort to deal with the turbulent environment.
Its shareholders must have been hoping for some kind of catalyst as alcohol stocks struggle to reckon with the slump. Apparently, the Brown family favoured a potential sale to Pernod Ricard over Sazerac’s proposal, viewing the French group as the more prestigious acquirer.
Dispute over Oktoberfest beer tents: publican filed urgent motion. The allocation of beer tents at the Munich Oktoberfest is now a matter for the courts. The Munich Administrative Court confirmed an urgent motion filed by restaurateur Alexander Egger on 12 May. He is challenging the rejection by the city council of his application for the “Schützenlisl” tent at the Old Wiesn, an Oktoberfest spin-off. His motion also calls the entire tent allocation process into question, which, if successful, could derail preparations for this year’s Octoberfest (19 September – 4 October).
Germany’s Warsteiner abandons two breweries. The firm announced (7 May) it would close one of its breweries and seek a buyer for another. Combined the two breweries in the towns of Herford and Paderborn had an output of 1 million hl beer, although installed capacities would have been far higher. Insiders were perplexed – not least because over the past few years, Warsteiner had reportedly spent some EUR 30 million (USD 36 million) on upgrades. Maybe the Cramer family, who owns the Warsteiner group of breweries, employed some nifty financing tools and the de facto investment was much smaller. But the question remains: why spend money on two subsidiaries, if Warsteiner’s own brewery has plenty of spare capacity – so much so that it has shopped itself around as a contract brewer? Warsteiner said that the closure of one brewery will take effect in August. A total of 211 employees are affected by the measures. The company aims to retain some of the employees at its brewery in Warstein, which is to become the group’s production and logistics hub.
UK pubs were closing at a rate of almost two per day in the first quarter 2026, according to figures by the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), released on 5 May. A total of 161 pubs shuttered across England, Scotland and Wales, equating to the loss of around 2,400 jobs. The demise of BrewDog would have added 38 bars alone. The BBPA said the latest closure figures highlight a need for longer-term changes, including a wider overhaul of taxes on the hospitality sector. It comes after 336 British pubs reported closures in 2025.
The UK has lost more than 2,000 pubs since 2020, and more than 16,000 since 2000.
Newark’s Anheuser-Busch brewery sells for USD 360 million. Goodman North America Management, with a USD 6 billion portfolio of real estate for industrial and data centre use, acquired the manufacturing complex in March, according to filed deeds. It paid USD 43.6 million for the 75-year-old brewery’s buildings, which was once Anheuser-Busch’s second largest in North America, and about USD 317.4 million for the land they sit on, according to public documents. AB-InBev announced in December 2025 that it was closing three breweries, including the one in New Jersey. The closure impacted all 475 full-time staff. The other breweries to be shuttered were located in Fairfield, California (238 employees), and in Merrimack, New Hampshire (125 employees), media said.
Heineken hopes to sell its brewery in Schiltigheim near Strasbourg – but the council has other plans. The 1.5 million hl brewery, which was put up for sale in 2022 and ceased production in December 2025 with the loss of 220 jobs, spans 13 hectares of land near the town centre. The Schiltigheim City Council wants the Eurometropolis, an upper administrative body, to use its right of pre-emption to acquire the industrial site. The mayor of Schiltigheim, Nathalie Jampoc-Bertrand, fears that Crédit Mutuel, a bank and Heineken’s preferred buyer, wants to build a new housing and office complex. She and her fellow councillors oppose such a scheme as it would overwhelm public services in this densely populated city. The council has other needs and would like to use the site to expand its public transport system, or even convert it into a park.
Old Speckled Hen becomes Spanish. Pub chain Greene King agreed to sell its Old Speckled Hen ale brands to Spanish brewer Damm, the owner of Estrella lager. Barcelona-based Damm will buy all the Old Speckled Hen lines and brew them at its brewery in Bedford. Greene King is currently building a GBP 40 million (USD 54 million) new brewery on a greenfield site outside its home town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, which has less capacity than its historic brewery, opened in 1799. The companies did not disclose any financial details, but said after the deal is complete, Old Speckled Hen beers will still be available in Greene King pubs and supermarkets. By selling the brand, Greene King is moving away from the off-premise sector, focussing on supplying its own pubs and the wider UK on-premise.
BrewDog founder seeks comeback with new beer brand Second Best. Three months after BrewDog’s dramatic collapse, James Watt announced plans to launch a new beer brand called Second Best. Speaking to the Financial Times on 23 May, he said his new venture will allow former BrewDog Equity Punk investors to claim shares for gratis. Following the sale of BrewDog to Tilray, some 200,000 investors, who had bought shares through BrewDog’s “Equity for Punks” crowdfunding scheme, were told their shares now had “no value”. To ease their pain, Mr Watt said he will allocate up to 19.3 percent of his new Second Best firm to former shareholders. There is no launch date for the venture yet, as the business still requires some licences and consents. He also revealed that he will introduce an “alcohol adjacent concept” ahead of the beer brand’s official launch.
UK brewery boom goes flat. Across the UK, some 320 brewery businesses shut last year, Companies House data show. Yet only 170 opened, resulting in a net loss of 150. The loss has continued this year. As of April, the number of UK beer brewing companies fell to 2,320. It peaked at 2,594 in 2022. Dr Tim Webb, from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), explained that the domination of big beer brands is one of the main issues. He told the BBC on 25 May: “The big problem that breweries have got, and it is getting worse, is access to market. The problem, which is really happening everywhere across Europe, is large brewery companies owning the draught lines in pubs.” Smaller breweries were also blocked from supermarket sales due to price undercutting.
India’s UBL closes Ludhiana brewery and leases capacity instead. United Breweries (UBL), best known for its Kingfisher lager, will close its Ludhiana brewery in Punjab by 30 June, the firm announced on 18 May. The move follows a long-term capacity lease agreement with a yet unnamed contract brewer. This arrangement ensures continued beer supply across northern India, the firm said. The strategic shift towards an asset-light model aims to boost flexibility and cut costs. This is not the first time UBL has shifted some production to a contract brewer. Per its website, UBL has an annual capacity of 24 million hl beer, shared by 19 owned breweries and 17 contract breweries. UBL’s stock has fallen by about 30 percent over the past year due to market pressures and rising inflation. Its Kingfisher brand is a market leader, alongside rivals like AB-InBev and Carlsberg.
Singha heir dismissed from brewery roles after allegations of abuse. Boon Rawd Brewery announced on 19 May that Sunit Scott has been removed from all positions within Boon Rawd Brewery and affiliated companies, after his brother, the environmental activist Siranudh Scott, had publicly accused him of repeated sexual abuse during their teenage years. The allegations triggered days of intense media coverage and widespread discussions across Thai social media, placing one of the country’s most influential families under unprecedented public scrutiny. Mr Siranudh and Mr Sunit are members of the Bhirombhakdi family, who owns Boon Rawd Brewery, the company behind Singha beer. The family was ranked Thailand’s 15th richest by Forbes, with an estimated net worth of USD 1.75 billion. Beyond Singha beer, the group’s interests span food manufacturing, hospitality, property and energy firms.