The Players

The 20-year-old Tver Beer Company, producer of the Afanasy and Tverskoye brands, boasts that its beer is made according to a recipe from an ancient manuscript, dating back to the time of the Tver princedom. Its Dobroe ot Afanasy brand (R5,500 per half-liter) recently won second place at a beer festival held at the All-Russian Exhibition Center, and the company’s eye-catching labels and innovative bottle design have surely helped its popularity. The brewery has begun exporting its beer to Germany and America – and recently received a proposal to set up a brewery in New York State. Tver has big plans for expansion, having just received a large loan from a German company.

Baltika, Russia’s largest beer producer, brewed 17 million dcl in 1996 – nearly 10% of all domestic production. The company has just invested $20 mn in development and plans to produce 25 mn dcl in 1997. Baltika beer is so well-known in Russia that buyers often ask for it simply by number. So, for example, a guy might saunter up to a kiosk and ask for a troika (#3 – a medium beer, also known as “classic”) or a shestyorka (#6, a hearty porter). Though Baltika is Swedish-owned, its beer is made according to Russian recipes, and is most emphatically a “Russian beer.” Baltika costs anywhere from R5,500 to R6,500 per half-liter in Moscow, less in St. Petersburg.

Baltika’s little brother in Petersburg, the Vyena brewery, which produces Nevskoye and Petergof beer (R4,200-5,000 per 1/3-liter), is owned jointly by the Finnish company Sinebrychoff and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. (The former takes its name from the Russian merchant Sinebryukhov – literally “blue belly.”) In an effort to compete, Vyena has also invested big in advertising (you can hardly turn on the TV or look at a billboard in Moscow without running into Vyena ads) and in modernizing its equipment. The company plans to expand its production volume by 50% this year by investing an unprecedented $60 mn in the brewery.

Founded in 1875, Moscow’s oldest beer maker, the Tryokhgornaya Brewery, produces four types of beer – Moskovskoe, Tryokhgornaya, Zhigulyovskoye and Kutuzovskoye (named after the famous Russian field marshal). The latter won a gold medal at the “Beer-96” exhibition held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. These relatively light beers have a slightly bitter aftertaste. They are sold only in Russia and cost about R5,000 per half-liter in a typical Moscow kiosk.