E-Malt.com News article: 2780

Russia: In 2003, Russians drank 53.4 litres a person, up from 36.6 in 2000, and consumption is expected to keep growing about 4 % to 6 % a year. There is room to catch up: last year, the British drank 99 litres a person and Czechs, 160 litres, New York Times posted on June 15, 2004.

New York Times published an article about Oleg Tinkov, who sees himself as something more than Russia's "beer oligarch," as he has been called. The 36-year-old founder of Tinkoff Private Brewery sells no ordinary proletarian suds, but premium-priced brews, as well as a sense of home-grown hip, to Russia's growing class of young professionals. (Using the two-F French spelling of his name for the beer is meant to accentuate that.) Vodka may forever be identified as Russia's national drink, but Mr. Tinkov has been capitalizing on beer's increasing popularity in Russia.

Mr. Tinkov has also been capitalizing on his sometimes shocking irreverence. His provocative opinions show up even in the company's stated mission: "Propagate liberal values and respect freedom of choice." While other wealthy Russian businessmen have toed the Kremlin line since the arrest and jailing of one of their own, the oil billionaire Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, Mr. Tinkov is having fun with the fortune he made, mixing free speech and free enterprise.

"Oil and freedom, maybe they don't go well together," Mr. Tinkov said with a chuckle in an interview earlier this year, alluding to Mr. Khodorkovsky, whose trial on tax charges is scheduled to begin on Wednesday. "Beer and freedom do go together." So do beer and food, judging by the success of the chain of microbrewery restaurants Mr. Tinkov runs. Bounding out of his softly lit, gray-painted Soho-style office in central Moscow after the interview, he looked in on one just down the street, where business lunch crowds stream in by day and loud bands pack in the patrons at night.

A recent Tinkoff beer commercial made the most of this freedom. It begins with two leggy young Russian beauties gliding up to a lingerie shop. Amid a flash of panties, the two women alight from a canary yellow Mercedes, link arms and float smiling into the dressing room. A pat on the rump here, a bump there, and they lean in and kiss. An Italian aria swells, and a Tinkoff beer pops its bottle cap.

Mr. Tinkov more or less created the premium beer category in Russia, and feels a need to heighten the contrast between his product and the beer consumers remember from Soviet times, stuff of such poor quality that brewers had to add shampoo to get it to form a head.

When the 1998 financial crisis made imported products, including beer, much harder for most people to afford, domestic production got a lift. "We brew high-quality beer for young people with money, people under 40, bankers, white-collar workers who have good jobs and like to go out,'' he said. "They don't want to drink bad Russian beer, some of which, excuse me, is practically malt liquor."

Several other Russian brewers have followed Tinkoff's success with rival premium brands like Warsteiner. But ultimately, "that is a niche product," said Aleksei Yazikov, a consumer goods analyst at Aton Capital, a brokerage firm in Moscow.

"His microbrewery restaurants in Moscow and other cities are a good idea,'' Mr. Yazikov added. "The beers are quite fresh, although in these restaurants half a liter of beer costs 90 rubles," about $3.09 - more than three times the price of an average beer at a Moscow kiosk. The average Russian earns about $250 a month.


16 June, 2004