History is always worth repeating if the bar is good
20 January 2026 – Yeltsin Forma Bars Kaliningrad: Many Happy Returns
No, of course it has nothing to do with birthdays, anniversaries or anything like that, neither mine, the Yeltsin’s nor Forma’s; it’s just what anyone who appreciates good beer and excelsior drinking environments does – they return, time and time again.
I wrote about the Yeltsin Bar and Forma in two posts and have to say that since I commended them, both for their beer and atmosphere, they still remain firm favourites of mine on the Kaliningrad bar circuit.
They, in Kaliningrad, will probably interpret this next phrase as being the opposite of complimentary, but, in the UK, we have an expression for such places: ‘spit and sawdust’. Although in these less earthy and more sophisticated days, be they ever so pseudo, such base terminology as this has likely been replaced by ‘designer-trendy laid-back interior’.
Yeltsin Forma Bars Kaliningrad
Call it as you see it; I’m a stickler when it comes to not liking change. For example, I am not quite sure why the Yeltsin scrubbed off or painted over its best example of ‘street art’ but retained its paint-spattered bog (that’s right, I said paint-spattered), but this anomaly apart, oh, and the loss of the classic jukebox, the Yeltsin in the character of its fundamentals, and may I say essentials, to wit, its rollicking beer selection and the lesson it provides in ‘how to feel like a student again even though you are past it’, render complaints null and void.
Meanwhile, next door, or as close to dammit as possible, Forma has done nothing wrong in my eyes, except, perhaps, to lose some of its furniture, or, if this is not so, to have removed what seems to be missing tables around the room’s perimeter, thus leaving the centre floor wide open.
I know what you are thinking: “What a pedantic old …”
I never got my Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat for hiding my observations under a bushel.
There’s no connection whatsoever between that last remark and the one I am about to make, but in the artful world of pretext, I shall now go all transitionary on you – I blame it on those Coro jabs – by mentioning how extraordinary it seemed to be drinking beer in Forma, and very nice beer, too, whilst dining on sweet pizza.
This is a delicacy I can honestly claim to have never sampled before. I’ve got a good memory, sometimes, always where beer is concerned, but an imperfect excuse for one when it comes to remembering food, so I am unable to tell you with any authority whether the sweet pizza we sampled tasted of pear or pineapple, but, albeit an acquired taste, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Yeltsin Forma Bars Kaliningrad
I ventured a couple of beers in Forma, and they were on tip-top forma (I had to say it, didn’t I?), and no less can be said of the Yeltsin’s beer selection. Just look at that roll call of beers chalked on Yeltsin’s blackboard menu.
Enjoy the photos; enjoy the Yeltsin; enjoy Forma; go to both and enjoy the beer.
Below: Forma bar
Below: Yeltsin Bar
