Several interesting new premium products are entering the St. Petersburg beer market. Two city enterprises - "Bavaria" and "Vienna" - almost simultaneously introduce new varieties. And Tinkoff is opening its own plant. This is how brewers are preparing for increased demand for their products in December. The Tinkoff plant in Pushkin begins production of beer of the same name in just a few weeks - in December 2002. Investments in the enterprise amounted to $15 million. This is the company’s own funds, as well as the money of an investor, whom Tinkoff LLC did not want to disclose. The plant's design capacity is 5 million bottles (0.33 liters each) per month. At the first stage, the company plans to bottle 12.5 million liters of beer per year, and in May next year it will double capacity. The planned cost of a bottle at retail is 33-35 rubles. With the opening of the regional plant, the bottle line installed in the company’s St. Petersburg restaurant will close. Equipment with a capacity of 71.5 thousand liters per month is moving to the Tinkoff restaurant in Samara. The brewery in St. Petersburg will produce only draft beer - 17 thousand liters per month.
There are some difficulties in assessing the market that Tinkoff will occupy after the plant is commissioned. Despite the fact that the company is increasing production several times, the absolute share of this brand in Russia will not exceed hundredths of a percent. Therefore, the company invented its own market segment - “ultra-premium” (beer over 30 rubles). And, of course, it takes up to 100%.
Today, the Vienna plant is launching a new type of beer on the market - Tuborg Christmas Brew. This is a semi-dark beer with an alcohol content of 5.6%. The new product is available in 0.33 liter bottles and 0.5 liter cans. Christmas beer will cost from 18 to 25 rubles and will be sold until the end of January in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Rostov-on-Don. The production volumes of Tuborg Christmas Brew at the enterprise are assessed as very insignificant and rather designed to satisfy increased demand in December-January. "Vena" is the first plant that decided to produce new beer specifically in the winter. Other factories are engaged in festive decoration of “winter” varieties at this time. This attention to design is due to the fact that in December the consumption of not only strong alcohol, but also strong beer increases. For example, according to the director of marketing of the Baltika company Petr Tibilov, compared to the relatively disastrous October-November, such sales increase to 20%.
The biggest new product of this season is in store for consumers from the Bavaria brewery. Loud, if only because Bayern have been losing the market lately. Now Bavaria's share is so small that the plant was not included in the report of the Business Analytics company (the brewers use their figures to assess their own position). Nevertheless, the owner of the plant, the Sun Interbrew company (in Russia it owns seven breweries, brands “Klinskoe”, “Tolstyak”, etc.) tried to revive it. At the beginning of December, Bayern begins to bottle Peter the Great beer. Sun Interbrew's vice president for sales in the West region, Andreas Seemuller, in a conversation with a Kommersant correspondent, assessed this beer as “local premium.” This will be light beer in classic half-liter bottles. Comparable in price to another well-known Sun Interbrew brand - “Sibirskaya Korona”. At first, the beer will be distributed only in the North-West region. Let us note that producing premium beer at a very backward enterprise is quite a bold idea. But, apparently, the shareholders did not find any other ways to revive Bayern.
ROMAN OVCHINNIKOV

Newspaper "Kommersant St. Petersburg" No. 207 dated November 15, 2002, p. 3

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