Heineken's profits in Australia have gone flat. The local arm of the Dutch brewer suffered a 16 per cent fall in annual profits in its latest financial year as the joint venture company it operates with beer and dairy group Lion notched a net profit after tax of $10.5 million for the 12 months ended   September 30, 2015.
This was below the $12.5 million achieved a year earlier. 
Lion, which produces Tooheys, XXXX Gold and James Boag, brews Heineken under licence at its brewery at Lidcombe in Sydney's west. Heineken is the official beer sponsor of the 2016 Australian Open tennis tournament, and has had close links with the event for the past two decades.
The Heineken Lion venture has been in operation in Australia since 2004, when Gordon Cairns, now the high-profile chairman of supermarket retailer Woolworths, was in his final year of running Lion.
The entity has remained intact through the $3.4 billion buyout of Lion by Japanese group Kirin, which occurred in 2009 and gave Kirin 100 per cent ownership.
The Heineken Lion venture's full-year financial results have been lodged with the corporate regulator and show that sales increased by 2.5 per cent to $67.4 million for the year ended   September 30, 2015.
The local arm paid a final $5 million dividend to its parent entity in   December, 2015. Total dividends in 2015 amounted to $11 million after a $6 million payout happened in   June, 2015. The parent group, Heineken NV is the world's third largest beer company and has been performing solidly in its home market of Europe, where it has managed to lift sales each year since 2007.
Heineken Lion's pre-tax profit in Australia was $15.1 million in the year ended   September 30, 2015, down from $18.0 million in the previous year. The entity paid income tax of $4.6 million in 2014-15, down from $5.49 million the year before.
Heineken has been content to go it alone on the world stage while its two bigger rivals prepare to merger to create a global brewing behemoth.
Anheuser-Busch InBev intends buying out British-based rival SABMiller, which owns Lion's Australian rival Carlton & United Breweries, the maker of Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught, for $US107 billion ($152 billion) provided it gains regulatory clearance in a number of countries.
The Heineken Lion joint venture was set up to enable the Dutch brand to take advantage of rising demand for premium beers, as drinkers traded up to higher quality brews.
But growth in premium beers has been overtaken by a surging craft beer segment, where boutique brewers are experiencing an industry-wide rise of between 15 to 20 per cent. Mainstream beer sales are going backwards.
Analysts from IBISWorld last month outlined that mainstream beer industry value was forecast to have declined by an annualised 0.5 per cent over the 10 years to 2020-21.
Coopers Brewery managing director Tim Cooper said last week the only way for a long-term decline in mainstream beer consumption to be reversed in Australia would be if the Federal Government started taxing wine on a volumetric basis.
Dr Cooper said record sales of Coopers in the month of   December had stemmed in part from hot weather, but brewers across the industry couldn't rely on that being repeated.
"The trouble is, it's a cyclical variable situation," he said.