The Vena factory was founded in Petersburg in 1872 by the Manager of the State Bank, E.I. Lamansky. One of the co-founders of Vena was the Austrian joint-stock brewery company Liesinger Brauerei. Accordingly it was decided to name the factory in honour of Vienna, the capital of Austria.
In 1882, in Paris, the Vena brewery won a Gold Medal from the European Scientific Society for the quality of the beer it produced.
In 1889, after failing to withstand local competition, the shareholders were forced to sell the Vena factory to the Kalinkin factory. Brewery operations were closed down and the facility was converted into a distribution warehouse, receiving beer from the main factory.
Just before the start of the blockade of Leningrad in 1941, work at the Vena factory was stopped and most of the workers were evacuated. The workers who stayed behind took part in the defence of the city. In the autumn of 1944, the factory was again listed among the functioning enterprises.
In 1994 a controlling interest in the company was purchased by the Finnish brewery concern Sinebrychoff. In 1995, 33.3% of the shares were bought by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
In 1997 Vena became the first Russian brewery company to produce a licensed beer brand: "Nikolai Sinebrychoff". In 1999 the international brewery concern Carlsberg raised its stake in the shareholder capital of the Finnish company Sinebrychoff to100 %. Vena became part of Carlsberg’s worldwide network of breweries.
At the end of November 2001, changes were made in the composition of Vena’s shareholders. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development sold its shares to Carslberg. The main shareholder of Vena now became Baltic Beverages Holding (ВВН).
In July 2004 a major investment project to modernise and expand the production capacity of the enterprise came to fruition. Thanks to the successful implementation of the project, which cost $20 million, Vena became one of the most advanced enterprises in the Russian brewery sector with deployment of high technology.. The production capacity of the factory was raised to 1,8 million hectolitres per year.
On July 1, 2004, by the decision of their main shareholder BBH, an operational merger began between Zolotoy Ural OJSC and Vena OJSC. The merger of Zolotoy Ural and Vena legal entities was completed on May 3, 2005.
As a result of the merger, Vena was turned into a company operating on the national level and selling its products in more than 70 cities around Russia. The Company’s leading brands were now Nevskoye, a Russian premium class beer, Uralsky Master, a regional economy class brand, and the licensed beer Tuborg.
In 2005 the operational merger of the companies Vena and Baltika Breweries, Pikra OJSC and Yarpivo OJSC was announced. On January 1, 2006 a single management structure took over the united group under a consolidated budget and sharing common goals. The merger of the legal entities was completed at the end of 2006.
HEADQUARTERS (St. Petersburg), FACTORY Baltika — St Petersburg