Scottish & Newcastle has announced good results for the six months to 30 June 2007 but said the recent bad weather will make reaching future targets "challenging".
S&N said revenue was up 7.8%, branded revenue up 12.4%, operating profit up 11.7% and profit before tax up 5.5%.
Branded cider revenue was up a whopping 24.7% in the UK.
We made good progress during the first five months of the year in our key Western European markets but this was undermined by the severe weather conditions experienced in JuneA statement from S&N.
A statement released by the company this morning said: "We made good progress during the first five months of the year in our key Western European markets but this was undermined by the severe weather conditions experienced in June. "Those weather conditions continued into July, further impacting trading in these key markets.
"In addition, the effect of the brewery strike in France has also impacted performance in July.
"These markets have therefore experienced significant difficulties in two of our three key summer trading months.
"As announced on 1 August, our Russian business continued to grow very strongly for the half year.
"We are now forecasting beer market growth for 2007 in the range of 11%-13% for the whole of 2007 and we believe that we will maintain a positive share trend.
"Whilst we remain confident that our core businesses and brands will continue to compete strongly going forward, the aggregate effect of the factors described above will make the achievement of this year's trading targets very challenging."