Socio-cultural origins of beer naming in the Kirov region

Abstract

Russia in its history has experienced completely different attitudes of the population towards alcohol consumption and, at times, diametrically opposite approaches of the state to its regulation: from dry laws to widespread encouragement, from the northern type of alcohol consumption (dominance of strong drinks) to the southern type (dominance of low-alcohol drinks). In this sense, today we are experiencing a unique situation: in modern Russia, beer (a low-alcohol drink) is taking the lead in the alcoholic beverage market. Beer is again becoming, in fact, a people's drink. This circumstance makes interesting and relevant the question of studying beer consumption in the historical context. How has the consumption of alcohol in the past influenced its consumption today? Is there any cultural connection between the eras? Or is today's beer culture starting from scratch? We have tried to answer these questions by studying modern beer naming.
 In this article the socio-cultural origins of modern beer names are analysed on the example of draught beer shops in the city of Kirov. The names are analysed in the context of successive major Russian historical epochs. The study was conducted using a content analysis method of three hundred and seventy beer names collected by the authors in the first half of 2023 in twenty-two beer shops in the city. Three strategies used for naming beer were identified: pre-revolutionary (these names are closely related to the names of varieties from various Western European countries), Soviet (built on the negation of the pre-revolutionary strategy, based on the development of new, unique names) and post-Soviet (modern names that do not correlate with either the pre-revolutionary or Soviet strategy). The study revealed that the most popular strategies are pre-revolutionary and post-Soviet (38 per cent each of all names considered), while the least popular is the Soviet strategy (24 per cent of all names considered). In addition, the coefficient of uniqueness of the strategy used is introduced, which allows us to understand how diverse the use of a particular strategy in sales is. It is shown that pre-revolutionary and post-Soviet beer naming strategies are most often used in beer sales, while the Soviet strategy is the least popular, which indicates the special characteristics of the beer consumer community.