When it comes to beer and wine, few companies can match the eclecticism of Foster's Group. The Melbourne-based company is the world's No. 2 wine maker, behind only Constellation of the U.S. Foster's labels include wines from Australia, the US, and Europe such as Beringer, Lindemans, Wolf Blass, Penfolds, and Rosemount, says BusinessWeek magazine in an article headlined Foster's: The Bitter Truth.

Foster's is Australia 's biggest maker of beer and is quite popular in Britain as well.

The company boasts that Foster's is the No. 1 beer in London and the second most popular throughout Britain, with British beer drinkers downing 2.5 million pints of Foster's every day.

That has helped make Foster's one of Australia 's best-known brands. Or, as the company's advertising puts it, "Foster's: Australian for beer."

Maybe. But the wine business has been struggling to overcome a big overcapacity problem in Australia . And beer is shaky too. Indeed, thanks to a series of sales over the past few months that have seen the company lose the rights to its beer brand in most places outside of its home market, Foster's actually isn't even Australian for Foster's anymore.

In April the company sold the Foster's brand in Europe to the Edinburgh-based Scottish & Newcastle for US$750 million. That was just the first in a series of disposals. In June, it got rid of a Shanghai brewery and a Chinese brand, Guangming, selling them to Suntory of Japan for an undisclosed price.

On Aug. 4, Foster's made another sale, with the company giving up rights to the Foster's brand in India . SABMiller paid US$120 million for the local rights as well as a Foster's brewery in the city of Aurangabad.

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