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The Japanese company Asahi Group Holdings is to buy the Czech brewery Plzeňský Prazdroj from SABMiller, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Plzeňský Prazdroj, which makes the famous Pilsner Urquell lager, is changing hands as part of a EUR 7.3 billion deal that also includes a number of other breweries in the Central and Eastern Europe region. Asahi reportedly outbid PPF, the investment firm of Czech tycoon Petr Kellner, and other contenders. The European Commission made the sale a condition for agreeing to SABMiller’s acquisition by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Consumption of beer dropped last year by about half a pint a week, according to the data by the Public Opinion Research Centre, released on Wednesday. The weekly consumption of beer dropped to 7.7 pints among men and 2.2 pints among women. In a long-term, beer consumption among Czech men has been gradually dropping, while consumption among women has been going up slightly. According to the data by the Czech Beer and Malt Association, Czechs are still leading in consumption of beer in the world with 143 litres a year per person.

The PPF group of the richest Czech Petr Kellner is on the shortlist to bid for Plzeňský Prazdroj and other brewery assets of SABMiller in Central Europe according ot Reuters. Other companies featuring on the list are Japanese brewery Asahi, the Swiss investment group Jacobs Holding and investment companies Bain Capital and Advent. The sale off has been sparked by the planned acquisition of SABMiller by Anheuser-Busch InBev with asset sales demanded by the European Commission as a price for the deal to proceed.

Two Czech billionaires have teamed up in an effort to buy the country’s top brewery, Plzeňský Prazdroj, according to Hospodářské noviny. The country’s wealthiest man, Petr Kellner, and Pavel Tykač, fifth on the rich list, want to get their hands on the Pilsner Urquell-producer and other regional breweries being sold off by SABMiller.

It started off four years ago as the Day of Czech Beer – but for the second time now this celebration of beer and pub culture has been expanded into a week-long festival. It runs from September 23 until October 1, with over 6,000 pubs, restaurants and breweries around the country taking part.

One of the Czech Republic’s leading breweries, Plzeňský Prazdroj, is set to raise its prices by an average of 3.2 percent from the start of October. It will cost pubs and restaurants an extra 60 hellers a half-litre for the 10-degree lager Gambrinus and one crown more a half-litre of the 12-degree Pilsner Urquell. The brewer said it was raising its prices to cover more expensive raw materials, in particular hops, and investment in modernizing and expanding its sales.

Czech company Gold of Prague is taking some very ancient Czech beer brewing know how and transporting it lock, stock, and barrel, to South Korea. The beer market there might be in its infancy, but a relaxation of restrictions has sparked a massive array of new beers and micro-breweries. The Czech company is in the throes of two projects with micro-breweries outside the capital, Seoul, and would also like to develop there as well if the early promising signs continue.

Finance Minister Andrej Babiš is planning to submit a plan to reduce value-added tax on draught beer to the coalition for the second time at a meeting on Wednesday. Mr. Babiš wants draught beer to be moved from the 21-percent to the 15-percent VAT band. When he put forward the same proposal in January he said it would help pubs hit by increased costs stemming for an electronic cash-register system connected to a tax authority database. Coalition partners the Social Democrats responded with a proposal to cut VAT on essential foodstuffs. The right-wing opposition said Mr. Babiš’s plan amounted to populism and pre-election campaigning.

The state-owned Budějovický Budvar brewery in South Bohemia sold a record amount of beer last year, in fact, the largest amount in its history. At the same time, the brewery reached its production and logistics limit.

Czech brewing jewel Plzeňský Prazdroj is going up for sale. That’s the result of the go ahead from the European Commission to the massive worldwide beer deal under which global market leader InBev acquires its nearest rival SABMiller. Plzeňský Prazdroj has been in the hands of South Africa’s SAB since 1999.