You're reading: Ukraine’s craft beer industry sees suds, blue skies ahead

The Kyiv Beer League’s Yuri Semenov sees a great future for Ukrainian craft beer.

“Ukraine has big potential for development, because Ukraine is 30th in the world in beer consumption,” he told the Kyiv Post.

Semenov lobbies the government on behalf of Ukraine’s craft beer industry and trains interested Ukrainians in how to brew their own types of beer.
In recent years, dozens of microbreweries have sprouted up around Ukraine.

Ukraine's beer market (infographics)The industry has attracted young people interested in starting small businesses and, thanks to growing interest, they’ve met with success: more than 10 breweries have opened in the past three years, while many more others make their own on an industrial scale by contracting to use the equipment of established breweries.

Growing a culture

Craft beer currently occupies around half of 1 percent of the market share of beer in Ukraine, according to the Kyiv Beer League. But for a country that drinks, on average, only 61 liters of beer per person per year (according to a 2013 report by the Kirin market research firm), the potential is big if the new products can tempt Ukrainians away from harder drinks.

Vasyl Mikulin, a soft-spoken millionaire developer from Donetsk who made his money in the coal industry, founded one of Ukraine’s first craft breweries in December 2008.

Using a building in central Donetsk that had been left vacant due to the financial crisis, Mikulin founded the Yuzovskaya Brewery, a brewery-restaurant modeled on similar concepts in Germany.

Yuzovskaya was ahead of the trend, but Mikulin was forced to abandon the place in 2014 after Russian-backed forces captured Donetsk. He moved to Kyiv, relying on a surge of investment to found the Lisopylka brewery in Darnytsia. Lisopylka produces Varvar, one of Ukraine’s most widespread craft beer brands.

“It’s supposed to be a garage-style project,” Mikulin said of Varvar, adding that the brewery didn’t have the initial capacity to match demand on the market and that the brewery had to import new, higher-capacity equipment. “We spent the entire last year on expansion,” he said.

In the Carpathian town of Kvasy, Aleksandr Shatalov founded the Tsypa brewery in 2015.

“When we started, we were only selling beer in our restaurant,” Shatalov said. “But people in other cities — Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv — started to ask for kegs, so we decided to work together and join the craft movement in Ukraine.”

Taking notice

Though craft beer’s place is small, there are indications that some of the bigger suppliers are starting to take note of the trend.

They face a burgeoning cottage craft industry: Mikulin opened the first dedicated bar for Varvar — called Varvar Bar — in central Kyiv on May 29, while Tsypa is opening a branch in Mykolaiv in June.

Vitaly Grushetsky founded a dedicated craft beer delivery service called Kran in July 2016. The company partly focuses on supplying big cities with beer from small, village breweries that would normally be inaccessible to urban consumers.

“Small breweries can’t always maintain their stock, so we help by delivering their product,” Grushetsky said. “We launched this project, in part, to help develop craft beer in Ukraine.”

Robert Doms, a Lviv brewery owned by Carlsberg, launched a new line of APA in April — the first major Ukrainian brewer to step into the world of craft.

“It’s a signal about the market that they’re using words associated with craft,” Semenov said.

A worker at Varvar's Kyiv factory inspects a brewing tank on June 1. The company recently had to expand its brewery amid increased demand for craft beer.

A worker at Varvar’s Kyiv factory inspects a brewing tank on June 1. The company recently had to expand its brewery amid increased demand for craft beer. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)

 

Ukrainian taste

As the market continues to develop, many of the country’s craft beer producers are beginning to look at selling their product outside of Ukraine.

Pravda, the Lviv brewery known for its Obama and Trump beer lines, sells their product abroad and recently received medals at a Belgian beer festival. Mikulin said that Varvar is available outside of Ukraine in a joint project in Vienna, and that the company is looking at exporting it.

Semenov said that Ukraine’s political and trade association agreement with the European Union would “mean that there will be more opportunities for small producers to export.”

“Export licenses here are very cheap, which is an advantage,” he added.

The varieties of craft beer that have grown popular abroad tend to be marked by a specific style. America popularized pale ales, while Belgium is known for thick ales.

A worker at Varvar's Kyiv factory inspects a brewing tank on June 1. The company recently had to expand its brewery amid increased demand for craft beer. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)

A worker at Varvar’s Kyiv factory inspects a brewing tank on June 1. The company recently had to expand its brewery amid increased demand for craft beer. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)

So, Ukrainian craft brewers are now racing to determine a formula for a Ukrainian craft brewer that would work as a “calling card” for the country’s beer industry, as Semenov put it. Many, including Semenov and Shatalov, pointed to a sweet, strongly alcoholic version of golden ale as an international brand for Ukrainian beer.

Dmitry Nekrasov, the chief brewer for Mikulin’s Varvar beer, developed the version of Golden Ale that could be a candidate for Ukraine-brand beer.

“In principle, it could be possible to use this Golden Ale from Yuzovskaya as a separate style,” Mikulin said.

Ukrainian craft brewers are continuing to enter the market.

“We’re going through an early stage in which people are still getting good at making their own craft beers,” said Grushetsky.

Semenov, the Kyiv Beer League head, is optimistic about the trend’s business potential.

“There’s definitely a future to this, we just need to keep watching what people brew,” he said.

5 places to drink craft beer in Kyiv
Lisopylka
1A Starosilska
0444901990
www.lisopylka.com
Taphouse by Collider
16 Yaroslaviv Val
0989094196
www.Colliderbrewery.com/taphouse-by-collider/
CRAFT vs. PUB
37/20 Nyzhnyi Val
0502721434
Mokhnatiy Khmil’
126 Velyka Vasylkivska
0983038383
www.tsypa.com.ua/zadladi/mohnatij-hmil.html
Old Bar
20 Velyka Vasylkivska
0688506060