First brewed on 7 July 1975 at the brewery of the Viru collective farm in Haljala (until 1977 part of the inter-kolkhoz enterprise Kungla); at first only Žiguli beer. AS Viru Õlu from 1991, owned by the Danish Harboe group from 1992. The third-largest brewery in Estonia (Wiru, Frederik, Bear Beer, Puls). Harboe stopped brewing in Haljala in 2020. The plant was then bought by Samu Saarikoski, a shareholder of the Finnish Pyynikin, who leased it to Pyynikin Brewing Company; it brewed there from 2021 and by September 2026 had ended its production in Estonia. verified info