CRAFT DEPOT: The famous Gletcher Brewery from the city of Klin turned 10 years old last year. We talked with the co-owners of Gletcher Brewery Vyacheslav Kuzmenko and Igor Khavsky on a variety of topics. We discussed the attitude to the word "craft", the specifics of working with retail and the prospects for online sales in Russia, the approach to production and the formation of a varietal line.
— How did you come up with the idea to open a brewery 10 years ago?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: We have been in the beer business for a long time — Igor since 96, I since 97. By the time we decided to brew our own beer, we had already been engaged in import and distribution for quite a long time, so we had the opportunity to regularly monitor global trends. We have already imported many brands from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, and England. We were particularly interested in the US market, as the Russian market is similar to it in many ways. In America, as in our country, there is no age-old established tradition of brewing, so local consumers have always appreciated imports. If we recall quite recently, the same thing happened with us. At some point, against the background of consolidation of the largest players in the United States, independent brewing began to actively develop as an alternative to such market globalization. It was a protest of people who put the interests of consumers, not revenue, in the foreground, and brewed honest beer with a creative approach at their small enterprises. Now they call it craft, then, probably, it was just an interesting beer. And this phenomenon has influenced the overall development of beer culture in the world. In Europe, too, the situation is widespread when 70-80 percent of the market belongs to global corporations. And against this background, there was a desire for something more interesting and diverse. We watched the development of this situation and understood that after some period of time we would come to this in Russia. The scale of the phenomena in the US market and in our country could be different, but, one way or another, everything that happened there, sooner or later happened here. Now we see a great interest in a variety of beer in our country. Yes, beer from small breweries is not cheap, and due to the solvency of our population, the growth was not as large-scale as it could probably be in other conditions. Nevertheless, in just ten years, several hundred breweries have appeared in the country producing interesting beer, and they have their own consumers. We discovered this direction a little earlier and we can say that we were one of the pioneers.
Igor Khavsky: Indeed, a certain set of moments led us to the opening of the plant. We imported a lot, so we traveled a lot to different countries, saw how people's business was developing. Vyacheslav mentioned the craft revolution in America, which was subsequently scaled to the whole world, but we also looked carefully at other examples — for example, Belgium, where historically there are many small independent breweries. Moreover, the same craft revolution also appeared out of something, it did not happen from scratch. Much of what the Belgians were doing was eventually implemented in a kind of modernized version in the USA.
— With what equipment and with what volumes did you start?
Igor Khavsky: We had a plan to build an enterprise for 25-30 thousand hectoliters. Then it was very difficult to communicate on the topic of equipment for small brewing, since no one had the current experience yet and people often simply did not understand what we wanted. There were several options from good European manufacturers, but the Mavim company made us an offer that could not be refused. It was still 12-13 years ago. In a year we built a brewery with Austrian equipment, and all the negotiations and other moments took some time.
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: At that time, enterprises with very small volumes began to appear, which could not provide sufficient quality. We laid the volume of 25-30 thousand hectoliters with the prospect of subsequently growing to 80-100 thousand hectoliters of beer per year, which corresponds to an average enterprise in Belgium and Germany. A confident small plant, viable, since in Europe enterprises with 20-30 thousand hectoliters are a family business, very small. For us, such a volume could not be effective — we initially built a brewery with the expectation of wide distribution, and it was important for us to ensure both competitive quality and the cost of the product. For this reason, already in the initial tenders, we laid down a further increase in the capacity of the enterprise.
— When did you reach the desired volume? What styles did you start with?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: We have already achieved the desired result in 3-4 years and from the very beginning we began to cook not only simple lagers. One of the first varieties over which we have been struggling for a long time is blanche, a real vit in the Belgian style with zest, with coriander. Then there were enough "wheat", but there was no classic Belgian yet. Most likely, this was the first such offer on the Russian market. But there were also thoughts about traditional light beer — they thought, for example, about kelsh, but so far it remains in the plans. In general, we focus on a fairly wide audience of consumers, but at the same time we offer unusual varieties. Our sales leader now is Milk of Amnesia, an IPA cocktail with lactose and fruit juice, originally brewed by us in collaboration with Anarchy Brewery. It would seem to be a rather unusual variety for the mass consumer, but it confidently occupies its niche.
— Did your concept originally imply the launch of a permanent line?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: That's right, initially the Americans, and, as a result, we have a theme with an irregular assortment of craft breweries. At the same time, most breweries sooner or later still have a permanent line, this is a natural stage.
Igor Havsky: At the same time, we are constantly cooking something new. But we are trying to build a national distribution, we have many distributors all over the country — we sell seasonal varieties through them quite successfully, but it is impossible to work on such a scale without a permanent line.
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: And let's not forget that famous American and European breweries always have a product with which they are clearly associated. The most obvious example is BrewDog with Punk IPA. Every company is still looking for its reference points around which sales and distribution are built. An irregular assortment in a more or less large-scale business is not interesting. Naturally, new items are also needed. This supports interest in the brand, it is interesting to the brewers themselves in terms of experiments and discoveries. That is why we sometimes produce, rather even for ourselves, some ultra-limited things like our wild ales, which have no commercial prospects, but are pleasant to ourselves.
— Your beer today is only available in kegs and bottles. Are there any thoughts about the jar line?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: Indeed, the bank is extremely relevant now, especially in America, and then the trend is gaining popularity among our small breweries. If you look at Europe, there is no such boom in banks there. And there is no mass interest primarily because of the quality of the equipment. A good jar line can sometimes cost as much as the whole plant. You can use mobile installations, now there are enough such offers — from Canada, from the USA, in Italy they are trying to produce something like this. But when bottling on such lines, beer often picks up oxygen and simply spoils
Igor Khavsky: We're getting into distribution again. If you sell a small batch of beer in your city and are sure that you can quickly sell it, you can pour it into a jar on any equipment. But if beer is sold all over the country, you can't afford such a risk. Now we have reached the annual shelf life of beer, so it is essential for us that the quality of beer remains normal throughout this time.
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: A few years ago, for this reason, we had to completely change the previous bottling line to a serious German one, because the most difficult thing is not to brew a good beer, but to convey this taste unchanged to the consumer. Our production is fully focused on solving this particular problem. We have a certified laboratory and there are always people in production who can check the quality of the product in laboratory conditions. There is a separate yeast department where we grow our crops. Today we have a unique collection of yeast, which allows you to experiment with it indefinitely. We also have a separator, there is a modern filter.
And, returning to the bottling line, it is also very interesting — it includes the possibility to resume bottling 0.75 bottles with a champagne cork, which we once produced. While pouring in 0.5 bottles, there are plans for 0.33 format, but all in good time.
— Besides your own yeast, I heard that you had your own hop planting project?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: Now we can say that this project is no longer there. We tried to make landings in the Klinsky district, cleared the ground for this, but in the end everything turned off. Growing hops in unfavorable conditions, it is still impossible to get something interesting, and in economic terms this project is a utopia. We calculated the figures, as a result it turned out that the investment cycle is 7-10 years and these are endless investments, only then you can count on a return on investment. We do not particularly feel hopes for the development of hop growing in our country without any state support, although, of course, we would like to release something interesting with Russian hops. But everyone has to do their own thing, and our business is still to produce beer, so we have no plans to grow hops in the future.
— Do you think the state can pay attention to this area in the not very distant future?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: It's hard to say. Now there are about three hundred hectares of hop plantations in Russia, while in Soviet times there were about three thousand of them. The scale is incomparable. In addition, hops themselves are a very complex culture. From the moment of planting, we will receive a commercial harvest from it only in the third year, therefore, as I have already said, to deploy even an experimental hop cluster is years of investment.
We were in Chuvashia, where domestic hops are being grown almost on pure enthusiasm, and we talked with the manufacturer. So far, the state, frankly speaking, is turning away from this issue. So far, this is all a utopian private initiative.
Igor Khavsky: At the same time, there is a very good seed fund in Russia. Many of the commercial brands known today are, in fact, developed at our Timiryazev Academy and at the Chuvash Hop Growing Institute, where there is a unique collection of different hop samples.
— What raw materials do you use now?
Igor Khavsky: We tried to work with Russian malt producers and some samples were of very decent quality. Unfortunately, not all companies can maintain this quality permanently, so we came to the conclusion that the best option for us would be imported malt. Everything is clear with hops, Vyacheslav has already given an answer.
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: There is no stability among Russian manufacturers, and there are a number of problems here. There are controversial quality standards by which companies themselves evaluate their product. There is also a big question about the quality of the barley they are supplied with. I understand that there is a lot of pressure on prices in the market as a whole and the demand for high-quality raw materials is not very high. This pressure is transferred to agriculture and as a result, few people grow high-quality raw materials suitable for the production of brewing malt. For example, we have strict requirements for the protein content in malt. I once talked with people who are close to agriculture, and I heard that in this industry there is no certainty that higher-quality and, consequently, expensive raw materials will be bought up, so there is a problem with it.
The chain has not yet been built in our country — high-quality malt is primarily interested in small producers who cannot yet meet the proper demand. Large factories are now more interested in total savings, which is why their demand is growing more for maltose.
— Tell us about the brewery's team — how many people are currently employed in production? Who is the basis of the team?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: Now we have thirty-two people working for us. The team is not small and not big. Two people are directly responsible for the technology. At the initial stage, we talked with various specialists, including from the Czech Republic, and eventually took a former technologist from the "Klin" plant, who left him after the sale of the InBev enterprise. An old—school person, so it so happened that we did not find a common language in the end - there was a great difference in approaches.
From the very beginning, the daughter of one of our partners Andrey Mishchenko, Anora, has been working for us. She studied very actively, at one time graduated from a food university, went on internships in Belgium and Germany, and in general, she was actively immersed in the topic all the time. And literally after a year and a half, we realized that we were not on the way with the old school and we needed more creativity. Almost at the start, the team was updated, and that's how Anora grew from an assistant brewer to a brewer who creates the main varieties. We can say that Anora is a brewer-creator, who is responsible for ideas and product quality, and our second technologist controls the entire production process. He also once worked at the Klin plant, but he is a younger man and open to new approaches.
There are people who are responsible for the administrative part. There are many production sites, each of which is responsible for a specific employee. In addition to Anora, all our employees are local, we actively invite young people to us and offer very good salaries for the Wedge, we are ready to train, but, as in many areas, we are constantly experiencing a shortage of people, as we see a general trend in people's unwillingness to engage in physical labor, without which it is impossible to do in real production.
— About COVID. How do you assess the consequences of the pandemic and everything related to it for the brewery?
Igor Khavsky: The pandemic has affected everyone, we are no exception. For some time the plant did not work, volumes, of course, fell. We just carried out the modernization of the plant — we changed the pasteurizer, separator, filling line. In fact, a new factory was rebuilt. And then covid!
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: The plant was out of work for three months, sales fell. Now we are recovering, I want to believe that there will be no new restrictions. Despite the fact that the state provided some support measures, we found ourselves outside of them. Although we are in the register of small enterprises.
In general, small breweries had a hard time, largely because they are primarily focused on the restaurant segment. HoReCa is also the main segment for us, but apart from that we are also working with retail, which has become a help for us in a difficult situation. Due to this, the risk of another restaurant closure for us is balanced by access to this sales channel. And, as we all remember, once again our state refused to meet halfway on the issue of legalizing online beer sales, which seriously restricts the market primarily for small industries that do not work with national retail chains.
— In your opinion, how important is access to online beer purchases not only in the covid era, but in general, in "peacetime"?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: The example of Europe and America shows that during the period of restrictions, the importance of online sales for small breweries cannot be overestimated. The products of such enterprises are quite expensive, and are not found in every store, so it will be extremely convenient for the consumer to directly order what he wants and thereby support the manufacturer in difficult times.
If you look into the post-covid times, the situation will be even more complicated. We see what is happening with retail now. The usual shops at home disappear, they are replaced by "Dixie", "Magnets" and so on. Moreover, soon we will be surrounded only by chain stores. For a small manufacturer to get on the shelf in such a store is an almost unrealistic task. The working conditions are such that one contract with such a network can ruin a small producer, and it's not just about beer — and this applies to food, and anything else. Strict requirements for the price on the shelf, for the volume of products supplied, complex logistics and a sea of penalties — this is about how it all looks.
Online trading is a modern way for a small manufacturer to bring their products to the end consumer, bypassing this entire complex chain. All over the world it is, and we again see some threats to life and health, although it is not difficult to control the same possible sale of alcohol to minors. I would like to hope that in the end our authorities will still get to this.
Igor Khavsky: The situation with covid, in my opinion, should have stimulated legislators to make the right decision. Even a bill on online trading was passed, but in the end they still came to nothing. It's a shame, of course. Having a national distribution, we may not need this channel so badly now, but for other small producers it is really vital.
— The word "craft" is not mentioned on your website, and it has also sounded infrequently during the interview. Don't you position yourself as a craft brewery?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: At the very beginning we called ourselves a craft brewery, but at some point there was internal competition on the market from some individual players who tried to separate themselves from the rest of the market. There were a lot of discussions about who is crafting and who is not, what is crafting and so on. As a result, we decided to position ourselves simply as a small enterprise that brews interesting beer, which can be called craft, but we do not do this ourselves, we do not promote the word "craft".
Igor Khavsky: What is crafting? There is still no definition, but this word sometimes sounds negative, including for the consumer. Craft is perceived as some kind of extreme, as not always stable quality. I believe that it is impossible to somehow position the product itself as craft or not, but if you cook the same lager somehow not quite usual - is it already craft or is it not enough yet? Perhaps some standards can be devised for the enterprise...
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: At the same time, our brewery fully meets the standards of the craft brewery of the American Brewers Association. Probably, speaking broadly, we are a craft brewery. We do not belong to global corporations, we do not use any substitutes, accelerators that affect quality, and we are always open to innovations. In general, I like the approach of Europeans to this issue more — many breweries there have begun to call themselves artisanal, artisan. Their approach is that experiments are important, but it's even more important to brew your beer honestly.
In many cases, the extreme still prevails among Americans and an honest approach is sometimes neglected - we look and see that some manufacturers there are already using some very interesting technologies inherent in multinational corporations. I must say right away that if we consider crafting in an extreme context, it's probably not about us. We prioritize honesty in beer production.
— Opinions about the relevance of crafting in retail are different. What do you think?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: If craft in retail automatically ceases to be craft, then there is no craft brewing in America, and all current idols do not belong to it. Seriously, we see a certain mission of small and medium-sized manufacturers represented in retail, just to create diversity in the market for a wide range of consumers. We do not find anything negative in this.
— Do you have any thoughts about opening your own points of sale — bars, shops?
Igor Khavsky: And we have already had a sad experience with both the restaurant and the store. In fact, this allowed us to better understand what our business is aimed at — production and distribution, and HoReCa and retail are still customers for us. Now the entire volume of our products is sold there approximately equally, we are not thinking about something of our own in the near future.
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: There are slightly more sales in the on-trade channel so far, but sales in online retail are growing more dynamically and will probably catch up with sales in restaurants in the near future. There are no new branded points of sale in the plans, now we are busy with other projects. For example, before the outbreak of the pandemic, we came close to the issue of exports.
— Tell us more about this direction.
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: We realized that we are technically ready to compete with foreign breweries both in quality and price. We supply beer to the Baltic States, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. We are slowly moving out of the country and we see that our beer is interesting in other markets. Yes, Russia is not very associated with particularly high-quality and interesting beer in the world yet, but our special varieties should help us in this regard.
— Regarding special varieties — are you following the current trends?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: We are trying to live for tomorrow, so we are carefully watching where our Russian consumer is going. And in fact, what will be the trend is actually decided by brewers. Inside any style, you can make your own product that will become a hit of sales and become a trendsetter on the market. When a consumer meets a product well, a lot of its variants immediately appear on the market. As an example, I will give Milk of Amnesia — I do not remember that there were many milkshakes on the market before its release, but after their number immediately increased significantly.
— Does the concept of "the consumer meets the product well" include ratings in Untappd?
Vyacheslav Kuzmenko: I will not say that we monitor the ratings in Untappd, but they cannot be completely ignored. Untappd users are an important segment of consumers, but not the main one for us. First of all, our audience still does not use this application and gives us ratings primarily in rubles.