A. Le Coq () is an

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n brewery. The company was founded in 1807 by a

Prussian Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzoll ...

family of the same name, who were descendants of the

Huguenots The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...

who had fled France in the 17th century. The company was bought in 1997 and is currently owned by the Finnish company

Olvi Olvi plc (, ) is a Finland, Finnish brewery and soft drinks company founded in 1878 by the brewer Williams Gideon Åberg and his wife Onni. It currently holds 18.7% of Finland's market share in beverages, making it the third-largest producer of b ...

. It produces many types of drinks including beers,

long drink A long drink or tall drink is an alcoholic mixed drink with a relatively large volume (>, frequently ). The phrase "long drink" is also sometimes used to refer specifically to the Finnish long drink, also known as a lonkero. A long drink will ha ...

cider Cider ( ) is an alcoholic beverage made from the Fermented drink, fermented Apple juice, juice of apples. Cider is widely available in the United Kingdom (particularly in the West Country) and Ireland. The United Kingdom has the world's highest ...

s and soft drinks. The best known beer is the A. Le Coq Premium, which is the most popular beer in Estonia, according to the latest AC Nielsen results in October 2008. A. Le Coq Arena in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

was named after the beer. A. Le Coq's key brands are A. Le Coq (beer), Fizz (cider), Aura (juice), Dynami:t (energy drink), Arctic (sport drinks) and Limonaad (softdrink). Its motto is , meaning . A song with this name by the rock band

Smilers Smilers is an Estonian rock band formed in 1991 by Hendrik Sal-Saller. The name reportedly originated from a Rod Stewart album, '' Smiler''. The band was first named Lezer Brozers. In the early years Smilers produced two albums in Finland, but ...

was also specifically written for and is used in commercials.

History

Direct predecessors of the oldest Estonian brewery that has been continuously operating – A. Le Coq – in

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

are the breweries of B. J. Hesse (1800) and J. R. Schramm (1826). In course of time, a large enterprise Tivoli Ltd. formed from these companies, the owner of which called it in 1913 A. Le Coq Ltd. Company A. Le Coq & Co. dealing with beverage trade was established in Prussia in 1807 by a family bearing the same name. In the 1820s, Albert J. L. Le Coq settled in London to trade with the products of the family's wine manor. He soon started to bottle and export under his name

Russian Imperial stout Stout is a type of dark beer that is generally Brewing#Warm fermenting, warm fermented, such as #Dry stout, dry stout, #Oatmeal stout, oatmeal stout, #Milk stout, milk stout and #Imperial stout, imperial stout. Stout is a type of ale. The firs ...

. He ordered that special dark and strong top-fermented beer from the big breweries in London where the drink was bottled, especially taking into consideration the taste preferences of Russian market. High customs duties levied in Russia and increasingly more frequent forging of the reputable trademark forced A. Le Coq & Co. (Russia) Ltd. that had been transformed into a private limited group in 1904 to move its headquarters and bottling plant from London to St. Petersburg. The owners of A. Le Coq were looking for many years for a suitable brewery to manufacture Imperial stout in Russia, in the end Tivoli Ltd. in Tartu proved to be chosen, where the company is operating today. Over the last 200 years, A. Le Coq has passed through the hands of many owners and many managers, but the trademark itself endures. During the Soviet era the company's name was changed to (), but it became A. Le Coq once again in 1997, when it was privatised by Olvi. Since then, the A. Le Coq brand has been reintroduced and significant investments have made the company (and its trademark) one of the leading and most recognised brands in Estonia.

Products and markets

A. Le Coq is Estonia's oldest brewery and currently the country's biggest beverage producer. Its range incorporates ten product categories: waters, syrups, juices, juice drinks, soft drinks,

energy drink An energy drink is a type of non-alcoholic psychoactive functional beverage containing stimulant compounds, usually caffeine (at a higher concentration than ordinary soda pop) and taurine, which is marketed as reducing tiredness and improving pe ...

s and sports drinks; and three light alcoholic drinks: beers, ciders and gin long drinks. The company's largest product group comprises its beers, which are principally manufactured under the A. Le Coq trademark. The Aura trademark represents non-alcoholic drinks, including juices, waters and healthy juice drinks, which are marketed in Aura Active. One of the best known international trademarks in the company's portfolio is Fizz, representing a series of natural fruit and berry-flavored ciders. The two most popular soft drinks in the company's product portfolio are the traditional Limonaad and Kelluke, which have been sold for decades. The company exports its products mainly to Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Latvia and Lithuania. Their main export sources are beers, ciders, long drinks and juices. In 2018, Le Coq entered the Hong Kong market with its cocktail line.

Fermented kvass controversy

In early 2009, A. Le Coq announced plans to start producing fermented

kvass Kvass is a fermented, cereal-based, low-alcoholic beverage of cloudy appearance and sweet-sour taste. Kvass originates from northeastern Europe, where grain production was considered insufficient for beer to become a daily drink. The first wr ...

. The plans were controversial due to the drink's

ethanol Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...

content (estimated at 0.5–0.7 percent by volume); most bottled kvass sold in Estonia is manufactured from unfermented

malt Malt is any cereal grain that has been made to germinate by soaking in water and then stopped from germinating further by drying with hot air, a process known as "malting". Malted grain is used to make beer, whisky, malted milk, malt vinegar, ...

or malt extract and does not contain ethanol. The issue of safety of fermented kvass for children was particularly contentious. In June 2009, A. Le Coq announced it would start selling the fermented kvass in an unbottled form.

Kelluke

Kelluke ("Little bell", originally named after a

Campanula ''Campanula'' () is the type genus of the Campanulaceae family (biology), family of flowering plants. ''Campanula'' are commonly known as bellflowers and take both their common and scientific names from the bell-shaped flowers—''campanula'' i ...

) is a clear lemon-flavoured non-alcoholic soft drink produced since 1965 by A. Le Coq (formerly and colloquially known as Tartu Õlletehas (Tartu Brewery)) in

. After a temporary name change since 2001, Kelluke made its comeback in 2006. Since 2010 Kelluke has been produced without

preservative A preservative is a substance or a chemical that is added to products such as food products, beverages, pharmaceutical drugs, paints, biological samples, cosmetics, wood, and many other products to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or ...

s. It has been compared to Sprite,Mare Kitsnik, Leelo Kingisepp. Hachette UK, 30 Mar 2012
Complete Estonian Beginner to Intermediate Course
but the original makers of the drink were not familiar with Sprite before the recipe for Kelluke was finished.

References

External links