Beer in summer afternoons is welcome by all who would love it anytime.  Considered in the category of alcoholic drink in all but one nation, Russia, beer was classified as alcoholic drink in Russia only in 2012.  Until then, it was considered food stuff with all other drinks under 10 percent alcohol.

Drinking beer anytime and every time was a common sight in Russia.  Be it parks, railway stations, petrol pumps, bus stops…just everywhere.  As per a news source “Beer without Vodka is like throwing money to the wind,” as told by the hard liquor drinkers.  It could be bought anywhere in the country and consumed like a fruit juice or normal drinking water.

With the drink being classified as “Alcohol”, television ads of Beer were also banned.  The restrictions were laid down by the then President Dmitry Medvedev in 2011 to counter alcohol abuse, which he earlier termed as “national calamity”.

An average Russian used to drink the equivalent of 32 pints of pure alcohol per year(as per an authentic news source) and 5 lac deaths were drink related.  Among these, more than 30 thousand deaths were due to road accidents and cases of drowning, too, after drinking.

Beer sales were stopped after 8 p.m. to which the chairman of the Union of Russian Brewers, Isaac Sheps said that cutting beer sales could be damaging to health.  Since stocking beer at home was a bulky task, the people would turn to consumption of harder drinks, which would cause more harm to health.