One of Scotland's oldest distilleries is defying the economic downturn by starting work on a £250,000 development of its "sleeping giant" malt whisky brand. The GlenDronach distillery in Aberdeenshire was bought in August by the Larbert-based BenRiach Distillery Company from Chivas Brothers, the Scotch whisky business of French drinks giant Pernod Ricard. Bill Walker, BenRiach's managing director, said: "This is the beginning of our strategy to repackage and relaunch GlenDronach in markets worldwide. We will take GlenDronach back to how it was originally, promoting it as one of Scotland's original sherried whiskies."

Coors is set to target women drinkers in 2009 after the brewer of Carling set up a group dubbed Project Eve to increase awareness of its brands among female consumers. Chief executive Mark Hunter set up the five-woman team as part of a drive to increase sales among women that will include the launch of a 99-calorie bottle of Carling. “We’re trying to get women to just stop and consider beer,” Hunter told The Times. “If you research women and ask them how many calories they think there are in a pint of beer, the majority will be north of 500 calories, when the truth is 180-220 on average.

The only sinking things about the Titanic Brewery are the pints being quaffed by its growing army of customers. And those beers are being sunk a lot further afield this year, thanks to a major deal with supermarket giant Morrisons. As part of that, the Burslem brewer is producing four seasonal own-brand beers to be sold through 350 supermarket outlets from Aylesbury to Ayr and Bideford to Barrow-in- Furness.

Inbev UK is proposing to close the Stag brewery in Mortlake West London, the brewer said. Inbev said that the decision to close the brewery is the result of the £34 merger two months ago between Inbev and Anheuser Busch, which precipitated a consultation on “synergies arising from the merger” and potential restructuring of operations in the UK.