Bavaria Brewery (Netherlands)

__NOTOC__Bavaria is a Dutch brewery founded in 1719 by Laurentius Moorees in Lieshout, North Brabant, and currently owned by the Swinkels family. The brewery produces a range of standard and low alcohol pale lagers under a variety of brand names including Bavaria and Hollandia. In fact, a number of European supermarket own-brand Dutch lagers are contract brewed by Bavaria. In Australia the Liquorland chain of bottle shops distribute both Bavaria and Hollandia brands as 'premium' imported Dutch beer lines. This builds on the fairly recent introduction into Australia of other popular Northern European lager beers such as Heineken and Stella Artois.

History

Bavaria Brouwerij was founded by Laurentius Moorees in 1719 and produced around 88 kegs of beer annually. Jan Swinkels, born in 1851, great-grandson of Laurentius Moorees, received ownership of the brewery and expanded their production and distribution. By 1924 the brewery had become too small and a new brewery was built and in 1933 the brewery added a bottling plant, which produced 2,000 bottles per hour. In 1910 a malting plant was built, which still produces malt for Bavaria and other breweries. Bavaria is currently available in over 100 countries worldwide and produces 580 million litres annually.

Price fixing conviction

On April 18, 2007 The European commission imposed punitive fines on three major European breweries for operating a price fixing cartel in the Netherlands. The three were Heineken (€219.3m) , Grolsch (€31.65m) and Bavaria (€22.85m). A fourth participant in the cartel, InBev (formerly Interbrew), escaped without a penalty because it provided "decisive information" about the cartel's operations between 1996 and 1999, as well as about others in the EU market. These four brewers had controlled 95% of the Dutch market, with Heineken claiming a half and the three others 15% each.cite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Heineken and Grolsch fined for price-fixing | date= | publisher= | url =http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2059542,00.html | work =The Guardian | pages = | accessdate = 2007-08-01 | language = ]

EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said she was "very disappointed" that the collusion took place at the very highest (boardroom) level. She stated, "This is simply unacceptable: that major beer suppliers colluded to up prices and to carve up markets among themselves. She added, "Heineken, Grolsch, Bavaria and InBev tried to cover their tracks by using code names and abbreviations for secret meetings to carve up the market for beer sold to supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and cafes. The price fixing extended to cheaper own-brand labels and rebates for bars.cite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Heineken and Grolsch fined for price-fixing | date= | publisher= | url =http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2059542,00.html | work =The Guardian | pages = | accessdate = 2007-08-01 | language = ]

2006 FIFA World Cup

At the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Bavaria Brewery caused controversy as up to 1,000 fans of the Dutch national football team donned orange overalls, called Leeuwenhosen, with the brewery's logo on them. The Leeuwenhosen, given away with the purchase of Bavaria Brewery products prior to the World Cup, was deemed illegal by FIFA in that they employed 'ambush marketing' at an event where corporate sponsors pay large sums of money to be official partners. With pre-warning from FIFA officials, staff at the game versus Ivory Coast asked fans to remove the overalls upon entrance to the game and provided orange replacement shorts without the logo. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5104252.stm Dutch fans given shorts for match (BBC News)] ]

2007 Dutch Champ Car Grand Prix

On July 12, 2007, at a press conference held in Lieshout, Netherlands, officials of the Dutch Champ Car Grand Prix and Peer Swinkels, member of the board of directors of the Bavaria Beer company, announced that Bavaria Brewery, the second largest brewer in the Netherlands, would be the title sponsor of the 2007 Grand Prix event. Officials also announced the signing of three associate sponsors of the event; those being Audi, Gant, and Hertz. The official name of the event is the Bavaria Champ Car Grand Prix Powered by Audi, Gant & Hertz. [ [http://www.champcarworld.net/pages/news.php?id=3774 Bavaria/Assen sponsorship announced! (ChampCarWorld)] ]

Since 2005, Bavaria also hosts the Bavaria City Racing event in Rotterdam.

ee also

*De Koningshoeven, a subsidiary of Bavaria famous for its La Trappe beers.

References

External links

* [http://www.bavaria.nl Bavaria Brouwerij]
* [http://www.bavaria.com/ Bavaria International]
* www.Bavaria.ie Irish Website [http://www.bavaria.ie]