£50m for W&D Shareholders In a windfall bonus for investors, Wolverhampton & Dudley Brewery is planning on handing back another 50 million pounds to its shareholders. It also announced that it will be keeping the fragile "Pitcher & Piano" chain.

Robot barman one step closer At the Electronics Entertainment Expo this week, Californian company Evolution Robotics are demonstrating a laptop-based robot which can perform a number of tasks including going to get you another beer from the fridge.The basic kit, which costs US$599, includes a rolling platform to mount the laptop on, a Webcam for capturing visual data and the necessary software.Teach the software to recognize a beer bottle and a fridge and next time you're need a top-up, you just need to wave a bottle in front of the laptop's camera and request a refill.

Three pints of lager IN a packet of crisps? Food Science students at Indiana's Purdue University have developed a 'beer spice' by stripping out most of the moisture from both lager and dark beers. They claim that the residue can then be used to give foodstuffs the taste of beer.

Australia declares war on the beer gut Health authorities in Australia have launched a major new initiative on what is known as "Beer Gut Syndrome" (or metabolic syndrome to be more correct) according to a report in News Interactive. The syndrome groups together four health risk categories including high levels of abdominal fat, high blood pressure and blood sugar and cholesterol factors which, together, form a potential recipe for coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and premature death.

UK drinkers taxed until they scream The European Union's single market commissioner Frits Bolkestein warned today that large differences in tax and excise duty between the member states does little to help the smooth running of the EU. Only Ireland and Finland enforce higher taxes on beer, which results in Britons paying nearly ten times as much for their beer as in some EU countries.

Pulling your Punches The UK's largest PubCo, Punch Taverns, who own around 4200 tenancies have withdrawn their flotation at the last possible moment. The shares were due to start trading today, but Merrill Lynch, global co-ordinator for the issue, told the Financial Times: "We have taken the view that in the current environment it was unlikely to perform well in the immediate aftermath."

Punch were expecting to float at around £2.50-£3.00 per share which would have valued the company at around the £700 million mark.

Eldridge Pope on a high Dorset-based PubCo Eldridge Pope have had an excellent year, posting a 22% rise in profits off a 6.8% rise in turnover. The group (which demerged from the renamed Thomas Hardy brewery in 1996) has done especially well from its 19 "Toad" pubs which complement its 60+ tenancies and 120+ managed houses.

Bass and S&N to merge? Six Continents (the artists formerly known as Bass) and Scottish & Newcastle are in merger talks it is reported in the Telegraph this morning. The companies, who have been disposing of their tenanted estates in favour of managed houses would then become the UK's largest PubCo with nearly 3,500 pubs and a turnover in excess of £2.4 billion.

Guinness is good for your bank balance That well known overseas development agency Guinness, have announced that they are offering incentives worth £1k - £15k to Cameroon players who perform well in the upcoming world cup. In addition, Guinness Africa will pay out £685,000 to any African Team which wins the world cup (seems like a pretty safe bet to me). The money would be split between the team & staff, and sports development projects across the country itself.

Beer v. wine - the two cultures gap? Anyone who has ever found themselves out in a restaurant with a taste for beer, but found themselves confined to the depths of the wine list will empathise with this piece from Michael Jackson (no, the real one, not the one whose face is falling off). In an article designed to provoke reaction, he argues that in some instances beer should be made more expensive rather than cheaper to lift it out of the "ubiqiuitous lager" trap and elevate it to its rightful place alongside wine.

Wetherspoons go from strength to strength Tim Martin's JD Wetherspoons have had a good year as they posted results showing a 25% rise on sales compared to last year. Wetherspoons have opened 56 new pubs this year, bringing the total to 577, and expect to open another 25 or so before then end of the year.

Drink more to offset the rise in National Insurance! You may have seen this drop into your mailboxes already as it seems to be doing the rounds, but just in case...

"If you earn £30,000 per year you'll pay an extra £252 in NI this year. Fortunately, there's a legal way to claw back this cash by exploiting the fact that the duty on a pint of real ale from a small brewery will fall by 14p a pint. Roughly speaking, for every seven pints you drink, you `earn' £1. So you can neutralise the effect of the £252 NI increase by drinking an extra 1,764 pints this year. This is about five pints a night. Obviously, people who earn more than this will have to drink more. For instance, if you earned £60,000 you'd have to find room for 10 pints a night."

I'm not sure about the maths, but it'll certainly help take the pain away.

Jennings feel the pinch Cumbrian brewery Jennings have announced pre-tax losses of £6.1 million compared to £2.5 million profit in the same period last year. Jennings, whjo have been restructuring to move out of managed retailing in order to concentrate on brewing and its tied houses were also heavily affected by last year's foot-and-mouth outbreak which decimated tourist numbers across the country, and especially in its Lake District heartland.

Wetherspoons boss more important than the Prince Of Wales! -well, in the drinks industry anyway. Trade paper the Morning Advertiser named Tim Martin as the most influential person in the drinks industry, ahead of the chief execs of Enterprise Inns and the Punch group. Prince Charles slipped onto the list in 49th place, based on his "the pub is the hub" campaign.

Tony Blair misses the pub UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is being widely interviewed today, looking back on his five years as Prime Minister. In what could be viewed as either a heartfelt plea or a cynical attempt to prove that he's still an "ordinary bloke" he claims that it's the little things in life he misses the most and that while he still had ambitions to fulfil, he missed simple things like being able to pop out for a game of football or to the local pub for a pint without sparking a major security operation. "You can't meet ordinary people in ordinary situations which is what I like to do. Of all the things you lose in your life, that's the one I miss most" he said.

Well mate, if you want to nip out for a swift pint let me update you on what's been happening to "ordinary people in ordinary situations" over the last five years. Your first problem might be finding a pub that's open in your vicinity, because your Consumer Affairs Minister is about to scrap the 1990 Beer Orders. One of the critical protections in the Beer Orders is one which stops brewers from selling pubs to be converted back into private dwellings - with this gone, you might pitch up to the "Scoundrel and Soundbite" and discovered that it's been flogged off and has Gordon Brown living in it.

If you find one, then don't get your hopes up too much about the choice of beer, as with the Beer Orders gone there will be little to stop the larger players refusing to supply pubs at all unless they take their whole range of products. And the price may not be much to your liking either, as yet another provision of the Beer Orders you're about to scrap required the brewer to publish a wholesale price list - now they'll be able to charge different prices to different customers, and a pub just down the road from the House of Commons seems like fair game to me.

Then, of course, if you actually want a WHOLE pint then you'd better be prepared to spend some time arguing for one, as your Department of Trade & Industry say that it's completely acceptable for the licensee to give you short measure as long as it's no less than 95% of the full pint that you paid for. You can try asking for a top-up if you like, but you haven't actually passed any laws requiring the licensee to give you one. Yes, I know that you promised that, but these promises have a tendancy to slip don't you know.

Well never mind, if you're really gasping for a beer then you can always hop on the train down to Kent and take advantage of some 'invisible imports'. The whole of the south-east is flooded with cheap beer carried across the Channel in fleets of white Transits to be sold on at car boot sales, in clubs and (let us whisper it) occasionally over the bar in pubs. This is because of the simple and inexcusable fact that in France only 5p of the cost of a pint comes from Taxes while here it's a stonking 31p.

Cheers!

If this is May, it must be time for Mild Despite the rain and strong winds sweeping across the UK over the last few days, May is upon us which means that it's time for CAMRA to take up its traditional championing of Mild. Mild, which first appeared in the UK in the mid-1800s, is a beer with rather less hops and a rather darker malted barley than bitter. They tend to be a bit darker and a bit weaker than bitters and can frequently be found for a few pence less.

Does this mean that they are bland and insipid? Don't you believe it. You might have to hunt around a bit to find them regularly, but certainly during the month of May a large number of good pubs back CAMRAs mild campaign by ensuring that they stock a good selection of these wonderful and tasty beers. I'll happily admit that I personally prefer my beers from the weaker end of the scale and that I don't drink much in the way of strong dark beers accordingly, but mild gives you the opportunity to get all those tastes without the high alcohol content (and associated hangovers).

Some personal favourites: Batemans Dark Mild (3%), Highgate Dark Mild (3.4%),
Brains Dark (3.%%)

That's not to say that all milds are weak beers though. No discussion of mild could be complete without a mention of the sublime perfection which is Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby mild (6%). Find, drink, enjoy.