Carlsberg to brew Holsten in Russia

As we saw in Australia earlier this year, the alignment of brewers often leads to a re-shuffling of brand licenses. Following the line-up of SABMiller and Turkey's Efes, Carlsberg decided to use a clause in the contract with SABMiller which forces SABMiller to hand the Holsten brand over to Carlsberg's Baltika.

Holsten in Russia is quite a success story - at least among German beer brands. In the 1990s, when Germany's Holsten brewery was still independent, Holsten's exports to Russia stood at over 600,000 hl annually. That was before the Russian Ruble Crisis of 1998. After proper imports had suddenly become too expensive for the Russian consumers, Holsten gave SABMiller the rights to brew and distribute Holsten in Russia. SABMiller seems to have done a good job at brand-building as Carlsberg has refrained from taking over the Holsten brand until now, although it bought the Holsten Brewery in 2004.

In 2010 Holsten ranked fifth among the top 10 international premium and superpremium brands in Russia, behind Tuborg, Efes, Miller Genuine Draft and Kozel (the latter two both owned by SABMiller), says Canadean.