The trademark of beer “Yachmenny Kolos” was registered in the seventies of the last century, back in the days of the Soviet Union. Therefore, it is wrong to call the brand Russian. For example, in Poltava they also produce beer with the same name and approximately the same organoleptic characteristics.
Historical reference. The beer popular in the USSR was almost as good as the legendary Zhigulevsky and was produced at once by several factories in the country according to a single recipe, so it will not be possible to accurately establish the owner of the brand. In Poltava, “Barley Ear” has been produced since those same 70s, and the Moscow plant “Ochakovo” began to produce it in 1992, registered the brand and suspended production a year later, focusing on other brands. And in 2001, they again began to bottle it at one of the subsidiaries in the south of Russia, in Krasnodar.
Barley Ear entered the federal level in 2003, appearing on store shelves in Moscow. Since then it has been published regularly.
In 2004, the plant carried out a large-scale advertising campaign, spending on it one and a half million dollars, almost a third of the funds intended for advertising all the drinks produced. Such high expenses were associated with expectations: the management of the plant expected to popularize “Barley Ear” and achieve sales volumes that would make up at least a fifth of the entire beer assortment. As it turned out, the expenses were justified – today “Yachmenny Kolos” makes up 25% of all beer produced by the plant.
The drink is poured into plastic (1 l, 1,5 l, 2 l) and glass (0,5) bottles. The label shows a wax seal and schematic digesters. The budget drink is the hallmark of the Krasnodar brewery.
About the manufacturer
Ochakovo is a group of companies that united around the Ochakovsky brewery founded in 1978. The company was created for the 1980 Olympics to provide guests and athletes with non-alcoholic and low-alcohol drinks.
In the first year of operation, the plant produced only beer, and in 1979 they launched the production of Cola and Fanta, popular abroad. And after the Olympics, kvass appeared in the assortment. It was he who became the main product of the plant – now Ochakovo is the largest producer of kvass in Russia.
After the collapse of the USSR, the enterprise became a joint-stock company, and then the core for a group of breweries from Tyumen, Penza and Krasnodar. Today the company has two own malt houses – in the Belgorod and Lipetsk regions, 1 thousand hectares of vineyards in the Krasnodar Territory – on the Taman Peninsula. Dry wines produced by the Southern Wine Company (Krasnodar) make up 600 liters annually.
The main brand case of Ochakovo consists of three brands of beer and two brands of kvass, known outside the Russian Federation.
But the share of Ochakovo beer products on the Russian market is small – only 4%, while Ochakovo kvass is almost 50% of the entire market. And the company’s capacities allow increasing the volume of beverage production up to 250 million decaliters per year. But so far these capacities are only half used.
Characteristics of the beer “Barley Ear”
“Barley Kolos” (4,5%) is a classic light pasteurized beer with a pleasant taste, in which shades of barley malt and astringency of hops are felt. The color of the drink is light golden, the aroma is light, with notes of wheat toast. The recipe, which was left over from Soviet times, was changed in 2017: two varieties of hops were combined instead of one and two malts, which, according to the manufacturer, made the taste more intense and full. Beer is an independent drink, but traditionally in Russia it is drunk with dried and dried fish. Serve chilled to +12-15 °C.
