Venezuela's top beer brewer halts production amid a shortage of supplies

Venezuela's largest brewer has said it has shut down beer production at the last of its four factories due to a shortage of imported supplies.

Cerveceria Polar, which announced the closing of its factory in Carabobo state in an email, had warned earlier that it had enough supplies only to continue production through the end of April.

Polar makes more than 70 percent of Venezuela's beer and is a unit of the country's biggest company, Empresas Polar. The company began brewing Cerveza Polar during the 1940s, but more recently the company has fallen on hard times as low oil prices have led the government to tight-fist scarce dollars needed to import food and other products.