The Royal Bank of Scotland announced Friday it had sold its British pub chain to Dutch brewing giant Heineken for the equivalent of $646 million.  The deal reportedly is part of an aggressive sale of noncore assets by the struggling British bank that's 83% owned by the U.K. government.  [C-I Note: Isolated rumors have it that the sale may have been part of a concerted effort by the bank to wean its personnel off of alcoholic beverages.] RBS bought the chain of 918 pubs - known as the Galaxy Pub Estate - in 1999 and 2000, as the bank looked to expand its operations into property to take advantage of rising prices of British commercial real estate.  The pubs include the Punch Bowl in Mayfair, a ritzy neighborhood in London, that's part owned by Guy Ritchie - the movie director and Madonna’s ex-husband. As of the end of September, RBS said it had reduced the bank’s so-called noncore assets to £105 billion, down from £258 billion one year earlier.  Along with the sale of traditional loan portfolios and its aviation financing unit, the bank's been offloading assets not traditionally associated with a financial institution, like hotel properties and a chain of senior residences and hospitals. Despite the effort, the disposals haven’t given a lift to the bank’s share price which, since the beginning of the year, have fallen 49%.   [Dealbook, 12/2/11]