Ukrainians sell wheat beer to Bavaria
It's difficult to think of a more classic case of taking coals to Newcastle than brewing a Bavarian-style wheat beer in the Ukraine and then exporting it to Germany.
Just to rub salt in the wound, the Ukrainian brewery has hired a German, Ulrich Peise, to fashion the beer.
When I asked him in Kiev last week if he made regular visits to Germany he paused and then said he preferred holidays in Thailand or the Caribbean.
Is he worried about a contract on his head back home? Bavarian wheat beer is a speciality. It accounts for half the vast Bavarian beer market and is popular in the rest of the country. German companies that brew it don't want upstarts from the Ukraine stealing their thunder.
And Ulrich Peise's Weissbier Etalon has taken the beer world by storm. In 2004 it won a gold medal in the World Beer Cup held in the United States. That's sufficient to have the Germans choking on their sauerkraut, but there were further triumphs on the horizon.
In the same year Etalon won a second gold, this time in its class at the Brewing Industry International Awards in London. Finally, the beer won the Best Imported Beer Category in the 2004 Tesco Brewing Awards.
As well as exporting the beer to Germany, the owners of Etalon have been selling it through Tesco for a year. But from January it will become more widely available through Vertical Drinks of Leeds, run by Steve Holt, a former MD of Cains Brewery in Liverpool.
As well as wholesaling beers from Europe and the US, Steve owns a couple of pubs in Liverpool and one in Leeds and they will sell Etalon on draught. It will face stiff competition from such leading Bavarian wheat beers as Erdinger and Franziskaner but Steve thinks the 5% Etalon will hold its own with its striking labels and pump clips in blue and gold.
Brewing wheat beer in the Ukraine has been a major departure in a country used to lager beers, both golden and dark. For centuries, the country has been a major producer of barley and wheat, and was known as the Soviet breadbasket during the communist period.
With so much grain to hand, it is not surprising that the Ukraine has a long history of both brewing and distilling. Brewing became difficult when Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, torched most of the hop farms in the Ukraine and Russia in an attempt to stop his citizens from over-indulging in alcohol.
The hop farms are recovering but Ukrainian brewers have to import most of their needs, which adds to production costs. As a result of these inherited problems, it is not surprising to find that two Western brewing giants, BBH - the Carlsberg and S&N consortium - and Inbev have bought several struggling breweries, with Inbev now brewing Stella Artois in the Ukraine.
When the Ridna Marka company, a major producer of fruit juices and glassware, decided to enter the beer market, its dynamic president, Pavel Rodnin, knew he needed a distinctive brand that would mark him out from the crowd. He bought the Radomyshl brewery in the small town of the same name about 45 minutes from the capital, Kiev, and planned a wheat beer as a result of trips to Bavaria, where he fell in love with the style.
The brewery dates from 1886 and was built by two Czechs who wanted to introduce to the Ukraine the new golden lager style developed in Pilsen in the 1840s. The plant is now antiquated and not suitable for brewing wheat beer.
As a result, Pavel Rodnin and his directors have invested more than £15m in a new German-built brewhouse to make both Etalon and pale and dark lagers. Capacity can rise to one million hectolitres, which will make the brewery one of the biggest players in the Ukraine.
Behind the smart packaging, Ulrich Peise's wheat beer is spicy with a rich creamy malt note and a long quenching flavour and finish. It has been well received in Bavaria as well as Britain, so perhaps Ulrich will get the chance to go home soon.
