Head to head

摘要

After a hard day at the office, John Brock can return home and pour himself a beer. Unlike most people, though, he can serve himself a draft Stella Artois exactly as Belgian bartenders do: cooled to the perfect 3℃ and with a frothy head skimmed to the brim of a chalice-shaped glass. Such a privilege might be expected when you are the boss of InBev, the world's biggest brewer. But it is a privilege that Mr Brock hopes many more beer drinkers will soon enjoy. So does his Dutch rival Heineken, which has begun legal proceedings against InBev and its partner Philips, a Dutch consumer-electronics firm, which jointly developed the PerfectDraft machine that Mr Brock has in his home. Launched last year in Belgium, it is now being introduced across Europe. But Heineken claims it breaches patents that it holds on BeerTen-der, a similar machine that it developed with Krups. InBev and Philips have denied the claim.