It's become pretty common to dislocate beers from their geographic homeland in the present era of brewing industry consolidation, which is why the Truman's story caught my eye this week. 

Provenance is a buzzword in marketing circles, yet it receives homage only intermittently in the world of big brewing. Partly, of course, global distribution needs mean that brands often have to be brewed at scale and close towhere they are sold.

Proponents of the 'nothing is sacred' attitude would argue that things cannot simply stay the same, to be preserved as some memorial to the past at the expense of the present. There is probably some truth there, but one suspects, at the same time, that such change is often made under the watchful gaze of corporate bean counters.

The history of brewing is littered with brands lost, but also those moved from their place of origin. Take Newcastle Brown Ale, which is no longer brewed in Newcastle, or Boddingtons, which has long since lost its namesake Manchester brewery.

This week, however, the new owners of the Truman's beer label offered us the reverse. 

In 1989, Grand Met shut down the 'Old Truman Brewery' in East London. It has since become the epicentre for quirky cool in London, surrounded by stalls that some would describe as 'vintage' and others 'jumble sale'. 

In 2010, the Truman's beer label was refounded by James Morgan and Michael-George Hemus. Until now, they've been brewing at Everards in the East Midlands of England, Morgan told me this week. But, they want to bring Truman's back to East London in 2012, albeit a little off its original scale.

"Our plan is to build a 40-barrel plant, which we hope will be operational by the end of the year," said Morgan, who, alongside other microbrewers in the UK, is enjoying resurgent consumer interest in local beers. 

If you're in London, seek out Truman's Runner and have a session. Alternatively, find the guys a brewing site and you'll be in-line for 500 bottles of the stuff. No, really. 

Just imagine a football World Cup without beer? Go on, imagine it. You can't, can you? Well, neither can FIFA.

The world football body has told its next World Cup host, Brazil, to forget about continuing to ban alcoholic drinks at the nation's stadiums. It's an issue causing some political problems in Brazil, which, like other host nations before it, will have to subjugate its laws and customs to those of the Democratic People's Republic of FIFA for the duration of the four-week tournament in 2014.   

Brazil banned alcohol from stadiums in 2003, but FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke is standing tall. He told a press conference today (19 January): "Alcoholic drinks are part of the FIFA World Cup, so we're going to have them. The fact that we have the right to sell beer has to be a part of the Law."

Are you getting that, Brazil? It's a FACT that Fifa has the right to sell beer. 

Of course, Brazil's biggest brewer, AmBev, is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, which counts Budweiser as the official beer of the FIFA World Cup. 

Honestly, though, I think Valcke's got a point. Has anyone tried watching England without beer? It's horrific...

The UK's Portman Group has clattered US-based SAB Enterprises over its Suck & Blow alcoholic jelly tubes. 

I mean, really, what were they thinking? Portman basically said today (19 January) that Suck & Blow breaks nearly every rule in its book. It criticised the product for potentially attracting children with its "childish font", linking alcohol to sex (I'm not sure I understand that one...), and for encouraging "rapid drinking".

According to Portman, the product is a tube that opens at both ends and is designed for one person to blow half the contents into another person’s mouth and vice versa.

REALLY?

Coors Light has achieved its expected coup in the US by knocking Budweiser off its perch as the second biggest selling beer in the country.

SABMiller's CEO, Graham Mackay, confirmed to just-drinks last year that this was on the cards. It has now come to pass, according to Beer Marketer's Insights, which this week put Coors Light 0.5m barrels ahead of Budweiser for calendar 2011.

No doubt there will be a few celebratory beers at MillerCoors HQ. Beer Marketer's Insights estimates that Budweiser - self-styled the King of Beers - lost 4.6% of volume last year. Coors Light, meanwhile, picked up 0.8% of volume.

Not exactly stellar figures, and reflective of weak mainstream beer sales in the US. It would be understandable to compare the tussle to a boxing match on a sinking boat. Anheuser-Busch InBev's Bud Light, meanwhile, remains, ahem, light years ahead of its nearest rival.

But, there is a certain amount of symbolism and prestige at stake for MillerCoors, not to mention bragger's rights with distributors. 

Australia's ex-prime minister, Bob Hawke, shows how it's done. 

Challenged to down a beer "for the country" at the cricket this week, Hawke took the full pint in his stride and polished it off as if merely signing an autograph.

Only in Australia.

The UK Government's Department of Health ceased all funding for advertising on responsible drinking in its last fiscal year, new figures show.

Figures revealed by Simon Burns MP in Parliament yesterday (6 December) show that there was no public health advertising around alcohol in the fiscal year to 5 April 2011. Spending fell to zero from GBP3.25m in the previous year.

Instead, ministers have encouraged industry itself to make up the shortfall, via drinks firms' funding of the Drinkaware Trust and also via the Responsibility Deal initiative, introduced earlier this year.

The UK Government thinks that, by 2017, its duty tax receipts on wine will have risen by 58% in value. 

That's according to forecasts published the the Government's Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) yesterday (29 November). Even allowing for a continuation of the duty tax escalator on drinks, at 2% above inflation, until at least 2015, this is a bold forecast. 

The OBR only makes predictions based on current policy, so it is not basing its prediction on tax rises on wine above the escalator level. 

Clearly, then, it is at least partly based on rises in wine consumption by volume over the period. Has the Government seen a UK wine market report this side of the Lehman Brothers meltdown? Growth has been hard to come by.

Maybe it's because I stopped being able to 'make things' once I'd grown out of Lego, but I've always had a lot of respect for coopers.

During my years as a drink journalist, I've had a few opportunities to see coopers at work, for example at the Speyside Cooperage. I find it fascinating, partly because I would be so bad at it. The only time I came close to attempting it, I ended up as one part of a duo that failed to even get a few staves to stand upright in a barrel shape. 

It's also fascinating because it's one of those skills that can hardly have changed a great deal down the years.

Diageo's new Cambus cooperage, which opened today (28 November), marks a new era in coopering, making greater use of technology to reduce some of the worst heavy lifting.

A few purists are probably raising their eyebrows at such a development, but it makes sense. Impressive as it is, there are quite a few stories of long-term injuries related to the intensity of the manual labour involved in coopering.

The core skill involved, meanwhile, will continue. If you get the chance, go and take a look for yourself.

Figures released by Accolade Wines show that half of "regular" wine drinkers in the UK don't know that Cabernet Sauvignon is a red wine. And, that's not all.

Among the other insights offer by Accolade's Wine Nation report, published today (23 November), is that only around one in four of wine drinkers questioned knew that Rioja is a wine producing region. 

I could carry on, but you get the idea. Of course, it's easy for everyone within the wine industry to sit around chortling about the ignorance of the uncivilised, plonk-swigging masses.

But, before anyone does, is it important that people don't know whether Rioja is a region or simply a type of wine? If they like the style and they seek out the name, one could argue that's all that matters.

I'm all for a bit of education, but you can't force it down people's throats. Many UK consumers buy wine on promotion and will continue to do so until the juice runs dry. Some will take greater interest in the styles on offer. Before that, though, they need to learn to enjoy wine.

Aldi has set a few hearts racing in the world of whisk(e)y by daring to sell a bottle of 40-year-old Scotch for just GBP49.99 (US$78), a sixth of its market value.

What an audacious marketing gimmick and what a walloping corker of a move for the Scotch industry to swallow. Obviously, not everyone thinks Glenbridge 40-Year-Old is a bad idea, because somebody has given Aldi the liquid - although we're not quite sure who, yet.

There are, though, going to be people out there who think this is beyond the pale. German discounters Aldi and Lidl have introduced a new dimension - a no-frills, cheap dimension - to food retailing in several countries, including the UK. This is much to the chagrin of some in the industry. Aldi's expansion into discount Scotch, then, will be greeted with a certain amount of suspicion, if not outright annoyance.

For a start, it asks all sorts of difficult questions. How much is 40-year-old Scotch really worth on average? Does the age matter, or does the marketing matter? Some of the early reviews of Glenbridge have been really rather positive. That said, it's hard to know whether this is the result of sound whisky-making or the reviewer's light relief at not imbibing something akin to 40-year-old battery acid. Expectations are everything in this game.

This is clearly a gimmick from Aldi and we're not about to see an influx of 40-year-old Scotch hitting its 450 stores on a regular basis. Only 3,000 bottles will be released this time.

In that context, I don't see the launch as negative. It might even do distillers a favour by giving consumers a glimpse of something better. Maybe, after trying this, they'll be more willing to spend a few more quid in the future.