In 2003 Russia harvested about 6 million tones of barley, and only 450 thousand tones of this barley has brewing standard qualities, V. Mamontov, the president of Russian Beer Union told e-malt.com at a press-conference on December 30. Now Russia cannot be supplied with high quality malt from internal market. That is why Russia imports up to 70% of malt, V. Mamontov said.

Russian brewing industry needs about 1.2 million tones of barley per year. In the next two years this figure will come to 1.5 million tones. Russia also imports about 80% of hop for brewing.

30 December, 2003