Uzbek craft brewery getting ingredients from Europe, keen to create beer culture

By  Trend

Uzbekistan’s Craft Brewing Company imports ingredients (malt, hops, yeast) from Belgium and Germany, the Uzbek company told Trend on Dec. 21.

The main supplier of ingredients for the company is the famous Belgian malt house Castle Malting.

“We chose the companies whose plants have been operating for dozens of years, who have improved their technologies over the years, thereby increasing the quality and efficiency of their products. The Belgian malt house Castle Malting, for example, has been operating since 1868 and is one of the oldest family malt houses in the world,” the Uzbek company noted.

Craft Brewing Company emphasized that high-quality ingredients that comply with all basic regulations are a key element for improving beer culture by creating new styles and flavors.

“We have big plans for 2019; we hope to develop a culture of drinking quality beer in the country and we plan to experiment with tastes, flavors, create new beers, improve the quality of our products and, of course, expand the market. Our brewery now produces nine varieties of draft beer (honey, cascade, porter, etc.) and six bottled beers (cherry stout, rice beer, milk stout, etc.). We already have a fairly big number of customers who, at the very beginning, having tried all our beers, stopped only on one particular, special for them,” the company added.

The company representative emphasized that many consumers are falling victims to marketing tricks and believe that craft beer is a premium class beer, which is sold only at inflated prices that are affordable only for consumers with above-average incomes.

“Far from it, craft beer is a product of a private brewery, for which, compared to a mass producer, the main priority is the quality, because it is in craft beer that brewers put their love. Our brewery proves that beer brewed from high-quality ingredients can be sold at affordable prices,” the Craft Brewing Company said.

It should be noted that since the second half of the 1970s, the interest of beer drinkers in homebrewing began to grow in the West. This trend has led to the so-called craft revolution – the emergence of many small breweries opened by the real lovers of beer. Today, craft brewing has become widespread in many countries around the world, but its degree of penetration varies. In Germany and Russia, in 2010-2011, the share of small enterprises in sales was only 1 percent, while in the USA such enterprises took about 15 percent of the beer market.

In January-November 2018, as a result of measures taken to expand the range and stimulate the production of finished goods, the production of consumer goods in Uzbekistan increased by 11.9 percent and amounted to 75.7 trillion soums. Among food products, the share of wine, vodka and beer amounted to 7.5 percent.

(8325.59 UZS = 1 USD on Dec. 21)