The plan actually involved cutting a total of 299 jobs, not all of which could be covered by early retirement or other unforced redundancies. But about 40 jobs would have been created in a new customer service division. Just two days before the end of the dispute, the differences seemed unbridgeable. A second attempt to bring management and unions together flopped on Wednesday, 20 January, with local negotiators unable to make a move without being overruled by senior management in Brazil. As late as last Thursday 21 January, InBev announced it was stopping payment to workers on the grounds that they had voluntarily made themselves unemployed through strike action.

Following the announcement that job cut plans had been scrapped, the first trucks left the depot, laden with beer supplies, before union supporters had even broken down their picket and extinguished their fires. In some parts of the country, InBev supplies had dwindled to nothing, especially in cafes; some shops and supermarkets still had cans and bottles in reserve, while others were left with empty shelves; what little reserves the chains maintained were soon swallowed up by panicked customers.

Trucks would also be riding out over the weekend, said InBev spokesperson Karen Couck. “We’d like to service as many clients as possible, but not everyone can count on full deliveries,” she said. “It will take at least until the end of next week for things to get back to normal.”

The restructuring at InBev is the result of changing drinking habits, as Belgians no longer go to the café for their beer as much as they used to. More people are entertaining at home, which translates into a fall in sales.

InBev’s loss was rival brewer Haacht’s gain – the brewer of Primus pils saw sales to trade clients grow by 30%, while sales to the public increased by 100%. Some of those sales will not last, since many cafes are tied to InBev by contract. Primus took advantage of the blockades not only to launch a nationwide advertising campaign but also to deliver free beer to picketers. That was an audacious move, admitted Primus managing director Frédéric Van der Kelen. “We did it because AB InBev are really bankers. If there had been a picket at Moortgat, we never would have done it,” he said. “Besides, it’s not unimportant for us to remind people from time to time that there are still real Belgian brewing families.”

• One unexpected effect of the resolution of the InBev dispute was the cancellation of a free outdoor showing of Michael Moore’s new film, Capitalism, A Love Story, planned to take place outside the Leuven plant. “It makes little sense to provoke a management with whom you’ve just reached an agreement,” said a union representative.