The head of Venezuela’s liquor store federation has warned beer production has reached ‘zero hour’ amid widespread shortages in raw materials. Photograph: Fernando Llano/AP Venezuela’s largest beer manufacturer is shutting some of its breweries, blaming a lack of imported barley, as its parent company remains locked in a wider dispute with the country’s government. The federation of beer brewers announced on Thursday that the beer-making subsidiary of Empresas Polar would suspend operations at two of its six plants owing to the shortage. Polar is Venezuela’s largest privately held company and distributes a majority of the country’s beer. Venezuelan troops, meanwhile, occupied a Caracas warehouse complex used by Empresas Polar and Nestlé, workers and company officials said on Thursday. The government says the land is needed for housing for the poor. A Nestlé spokesman, Andres Alegrett, said the company had been informed by the facility’s owner that the area was […]