How beer brought Christianity to Russia

[yankeedoodle]

Prince Vladimir had to choose between Islam and Orthodox Christianity.  He was rich, and choosing Islam would allow him to have multiple wives, which he could afford.  But, the people weren't rich, and they liked beer, which is forbidden in Islam.  So, Prince Vladimir choose Orthodox Christianity for Russia's religion for the sake of the Russian people.  What a great leader! 

Surprising for many: Beer is a Russian national drink
In Russia, the beer industry is on the rise and is recovering from the fact that Western brewing companies have left the country.

by Anti-Spiegel
April 28, 2025 , 1:00 PM
https://anti--spiegel-ru.translate.goog/2025/fuer-viele-ueberraschend-bier-ist-ein-russisches-nationalgetraenk/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp


It may surprise many, but beer is very popular in Russia, and Russia is one of the world's leading countries in per capita beer consumption, even if it obviously doesn't compare to the classic "beer countries" like Germany or the Czech Republic. And Russian beers are really good, too.

Even German visitors to a large Russian supermarket are stunned by the truly endless shelves filled with a myriad of different beers on their first visit to a large Russian supermarket, as such a selection is unheard of in Germany. As a German, I have to say that many of these beers don't necessarily suit German tastes, but the sight of this selection is still impressive.

Before 2022, the Russian brewing market was firmly in the hands of foreign investors, who left the Russian market after the escalation in Ukraine. I reported in 2023 on the problems that arose, particularly with Carlsberg, which owned the largest Russian brewing group and which Carlsberg had milked so financially in the years before that it faced existential problems .

A lot has happened since then, and on Sunday, Russian television once again reported on the Russian brewing industry and its current situation and problems in its weekly news roundup. I translated the Russian report .

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The Russian beer industry is coping with the consequences of the intervention
On a topic that has been relevant throughout the centuries: beer. Our culture owes much to beer. Orthodoxy, for example. When the great Kiev prince Vladimir received ambassadors from the Volga-Kama region in 896 who had chosen a religion for Russia, Mohammedanism initially seemed attractive to him because it permitted polygamy, which suited the prince. When it came to strictly abstaining from alcoholic beverages, he began to have doubts, because mead and home-brewed beverages were traditional among the people. So, essentially, beer.

Everything was usually made with malt and hops. If that's the case, then beer is an extremely popular beverage for our culture, with deep historical roots. As we know, Prince Vladimir ultimately chose Orthodoxy. It's clear that it wasn't all about beer, but beer was still one of the factors.

Even today, beer accounts for a large share of the alcohol market in Russia. The problem is that there is no order in this fragmented and underinvested industry, and it is difficult to monitor quality. While a law came into force in the wine industry five years ago that brought order to all processes, the brewing industry is still a long way from achieving this.

While the industry has its own market leaders, Baltika, once Europe's most important beer brand, was revived after the departure of its foreign owners. By focusing on quality, Baltika was able to increase its sales by almost 19 percent last year.

Our reporters report on the problems of the beer industry.

Here they are, the first hops of the season. In the fields of Altai and Chuvashia, the vines have yet to awaken, but here, in the greenhouses of the Tula region, the shoots are already taller than a man. In a few weeks, they will be pruned and propagated, and seedlings will emerge. Brewers are currently doing everything they can to increase the harvest of our Russian hops.

Our dependence on imports is almost vassal-like. We only have five percent of our own hops. The foreign owners of Russian breweries were very happy with that. But the foreigners are gone, and it's time to break free from this dependence – after all, it worked with the malt.

Sowing has already been completed. Until recently, malting barley was imported from Denmark and Germany, but they have set a goal and cultivated seeds, developed technologies, and built malthouses.

"The country has undergone exactly the same transformation in the brewing industry over the past few decades," says Taimuraz Bolloyev, chairman of the Council for the Development of the Russian Beer and Soft Drinks Industry.

Taimuraz Bolloyev, the patriarch of the brewing art, is the founder of Baltika, the legendary brand that was number one not only in Russia but also in Europe until it was acquired by the Danes. Today, Bolloyev leads a new professional community dedicated to helping the industry recover from the consequences of the beer intervention.

Taimuraz Bolloyev explains: "The expectations for foreigners entering the market were extremely positive, azure and bright. We would receive the same product and the same development as in the countries from which the investments came. But as the process progressed, a completely different picture presented itself. In short: there was no major development."

Carlsberg squeezed around six billion euros out of the thriving company. Over the course of 15 years, not a single production line was replaced. Three of the eleven factories were closed. Production volume fell by almost half. The Danes transferred 100 percent of the profits abroad and, as owners of the rights to foreign beer brands, also earned royalties for themselves. This was precisely why the Russian factories produced so little Russian beer—it was unprofitable.

And now something completely new is happening at Baltika and state-of-the-art new facilities are coming into operation.

After Baltika became Russian again, it brought back the recipes developed in the 1990s, the collection with golden numbers, 100 percent malt, local hops, and its own yeast from Kamchatka. Today, the old "Balitika-3" is bottled in new bottles. The "4" is brewed again.

One expert commented during the tasting: "This is a rye ale. The aroma is rich, with notes of bread crust and caramel, and a little hops."

Baltika currently produces 450 types of beer and other beverages, including the drink "For Ours," which was specially developed for the front and delivered free of charge.

All production lines are back in operation, including those shut down by Carlsberg.

"The last time we came to you, half of it wasn't working. What's going on now?" I ask the brewmaster.

"There have been significant changes at our plant. A performance increase of more than 20 percent."

Sales have increased by the same amount after many years of decline—a significant jump. Baltika, along with another major company, InBev Efes, has joined a new organization, the Brewery Industry Development Council.

"The Russian brewery market has the key ingredients: expertise, experience, and technology. Today, over 95 percent of the beer consumed in the country is produced in Russia. And since we are a Russian company, our main task is to develop the Russian economy," says Nikolay Tyurnikov, CEO of InBev Efes.

"The foreign companies that were present on the Russian market and effectively dominated it have now left our country or are in the process of doing so. Therefore, we as Russian breweries must now join forces to solve our own, Russian problems," says Dmitri Vesir, CEO of the Baltika Brewery.

In fact, there are already seven brewing associations in the brewing industry, and it's not exactly as if they get along well with each other. Taimuraz Bolloyev is perhaps the only one who can unite the industry, as all the major successes are associated with his name.

Before being sold to the Danes, Baltika consistently won prestigious international awards and was exported to 80 countries worldwide, with an export share of 30 percent. Now, that number is down to fewer than seven.

In Paris, our beer is now only available in shops catering to Russians, whose display cases entice customers with matryoshkas and samovars. The same can be seen in London. This shop is called "Kalinka" and sells Russian and Eastern European delicacies.

Taimuraz Bolloyev says: "Unfortunately, this approach of temporary workers proved to be wrong, given the trust we Russians placed in foreigners. We are now reviewing it and understanding who we are dealing with. In a blind tasting, the local varieties naturally win, as the visual psychological pressure of a label written in a foreign language is ineffective."

Modern Russian varieties are based on ancient traditions. Beer is a national drink of Russia, mentioned in the earliest chronicles, and a culture of consumption is widespread everywhere.

The medieval Ossetian sanctuary of Rekom in the Tsei Gorge. Three ritual cakes stand on the stone, beer is poured into the two-handed kahs cup, and prayers are recited. Thus, the Nart epic is specifically about beer, not strong drinks or wine, as ethnographer Aslan Kasayev tells us: "In the Nart epic, Shatana invented beer and said that from now on we will perform all prayers with beer, which is called aluton."

They brew according to the recipes of their ancestors, just as grandmothers in Ossetian villages have done for centuries: the ingredients are spring water, hops, malt and, as people joke here, the brewer's conscience.

In Chuvashia, no wedding is complete without home-brewed beer. The same applies to other holidays, be they birthdays or Thanksgiving. The brewing process itself is a ritual. It has been practiced in almost every household since ancient times. Family recipes have been passed down from generation to generation. Chuvashia also has a republican beer museum. The northernmost and most environmentally friendly hops in the world are also grown here. The same hops used to brew the classic Soviet varieties: "Leningradskoe" and "Rizhskoe," as well as "Velvet," "Ukrainskoe," "Martovskoe," and "Porter," with the most popular being "Zhigulevskoe."

At that time, several thousand tons were harvested annually in Chuvashia. Now, the number is several hundred. The first blow to hop growers was Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign, and the second was foreign investors who forced our factories to buy their hops abroad. This destroyed Chuvash hop cultivation. Now, efforts are being made to catch up, with new varieties being developed and advanced training courses being organized at the research center of the Agricultural University.

The breweries also support the Chuvash farmers.

This production line, for example, processes our hops thanks to the joint efforts of large and small, so-called craft breweries. This is the oldest of them. Elena and Andrei Tyukin founded it 20 years ago. Since then, the market has grown, and there are now 2,500 breweries, and the industry employs 600,000 people, including related industries.

However, there is no overall development strategy. Therefore, the artisans support the idea of ��joining forces under the auspices of the council. "We are fully committed to this, because the changes of the past few years, since beer was classified as an alcoholic product in 2013, have slowed down in the industry over these 12 years. This is very depressing," says Elena Tyukina.

This brewery has made India Pale Ale available to Russian beer connoisseurs, and here's the freshly brewed Flemish version. And in the cellar, they grind pears, which they also grow themselves. Sidr and beer are elevated to art here, as Elena Tyukina says: "We would produce more innovative products because science is advancing. Although beer is many thousands of years old, technologies and styles still need to be modernized, and new perspectives developed."

We need to restore the reputation of our brewing industry, just as we did with wine. According to the Quality Authority, more than half of consumers already believe that Russian wines are better than foreign ones. Our wines have a 60 percent market share.

It all began with a law that stipulated that wine could only be made from grapes, and Russian wine would be made from Russian grapes. It was to occupy at least one-fifth of store shelves. The same percentage applied to restaurant wine lists, but initially only as a recommendation.

"Today, you walk into some restaurants and ask, 'Do you have Russian wine?' They say, 'No.' 'Why, on principle?' 'No. Well, we somehow don't like it.' 'What do you mean, somehow?' People like it, but they don't. These are some strange points. People have tried Russian wine; it has become more premium. It is healthier and fresher than Western wine. Well, for example, our wines contain less sulfur than EU wines," says Dmitry Kiselyov, chairman of the board of the Russian Winemakers and Winemakers Association.

The landscape in the wine regions has changed. The Krasnodar Territory—from Gelendzhik to Novorossiysk—began to resemble the French province of Bordeaux. The vineyard area already exceeds 100,000 hectares, but needs to be doubled to meet domestic and export demand. Every bush is counted.

Dmitry Kiselyov says: "Each farm reports the harvest it has achieved from a certain number of vines. If this harvest exceeds the potential yield by several times, then something is wrong; there is a risk of adulteration. That's why we track the wine production technology and the volume from harvest to bottle."

The Association of Winegrowers and Winemakers of Russia represents producers before the state, participates in legislative work and monitors the quality of products.

The Brewery Industry Council intends to work in the same direction and develop the brewing and drinking culture.

Taimuraz Bolloyev explains: "Consumer culture is stagnating, it is underdeveloped. This product, of course, doesn't deserve such an attitude, considering its thousand-year history in the development of our country. Beer is a national product, an ancient national product of Rus, a popular drink. Beer is a shield against the consumption of high-proof alcoholic beverages all over the world."

Today, beer is legally equivalent to vodka, although in the 1960s and 1970s, it was still considered a rival to high-proof alcohol and placed in the same category as water and soft drinks. The industry also called itself that: non-alcoholic beer.

Nowadays, brewing is a profession for the strong-willed; everything is so regulated that even a small business requires a whole staff of accountants. The council will try to steer the situation into civilized territory. The most important goal is for the national beverage to become a source of national pride.

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