Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus

Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad

25 August 2024 ~ Bistrampolio Beer in Kaliningrad is it any good?

Bistrampolio! It’s very much a mouthful, isn’t it! To the complacent, or could that be arrogant, English, who expect everyone else to speak their language, it sounds like a cross between a poser’s restaurant in old-time London’s Tooley Street and a disease brought on by inveterate mint eating. But have I got news for you: it’s nothing of the sort!

Bistrampolio is, for want of a better description, a chocolate stout. Its full name is Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus, but we won’t hold that against it.

It is brewed by Lithuanian brewers Aukstaitijos Bravorai, who seem to specialise in my favourite bottles ~ flip top ~  and win countless awards in my mind for best labels in their class, possibly because their labels exist in a class of their own.

Beer review links:

[Butauty] [Kanapinis (light)] [Kanapinis (dark)]
[Keptinis Farmhouse]

The Bistrampolio bottle is dark but not as dark as its contents. If you were to pour it into a glass, and where else would you pour it (?), and then swiftly turn off the lights, you wouldn’t be able to see it. No, honestly, it really is that dark. As black as your hat, which is green.

And even with a miner’s helmet with a torch strapped on the front, which you probably bought from eBay, you would only need to wear it, if you felt you had to.

A full body is easily found, and this beer certainly has one. If you’ve got a girlfriend like that, you’ll know perfectly well what I mean.

Bistrampolio Beer in Kaliningrad

I’m busy at the moment sampling what the brewers of Bistrampolio tell me is a beer containing five types of malts. That’s not one malt! That’s five! Another interesting figure, which ties in like a pair of corsets to the image of full-bodied, is its 6% O.G., making it not just a full body but an appreciably strong body.

The flavour is all there, and believe you me it’s rich, but, unlike many strong, dark beers, its consistency is light, not intensely glutinous, thus giving you, the drinker, the full malty, as it were, but in a rather surprisingly thirst-quenching way. Drunk chilled, as the brewers suggest, Bistrampolio hits the right spot from the top of the glass to the bottom.

Has it a good finish and an aftertaste to match? What sort of question is that? Has a globalist got morals? The first is a yes; the second a no. Bistrampolio is smooth, as smooth as the finest black velvet. Comparatively speaking (why not?), Guinness is to Bistrampolio what a horse-hair blanket is to silk. “On my sainted mother’s life, to be sure, to be sure, to be sure …” In the second place, there is no second place, for if Bistrampolio was a horse and I a betting man, I would be quids in on this one-horse race.

But enough of this idle banter! Switch the light back on and let’s have a proper look at her!

She’s dark, dusky, sultry; she carries the perfume of caramel malts with just the right hint of barley; and boy does she go down well.

With a pedigree like this (woof!) and an O.G. of 6%, she possesses the kind of darkness that I could gladly take a knee for, or anything else for that matter…

BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus
Brewer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai
Where it is brewed: Lithuania
Bottle capacity: 1litre
Strength: 6%
Price: It cost me about 310 roubles (£2.71)
Appearance: Dark chocolate
Aroma: Rich malty chocolate
Taste: Handsome
Fizz amplitude: 3/10
Label/Marketing: Classic
Would you buy it again? I want to

Beer rating

About the beer: Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus
The brewer’s website has this to say about Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus:

“BISTRAMPOLI MANOR unfiltered chocolate dark beer. This 6% ABV beer is brewed with a combination of five malts – Pilsner Light, Munich, Caramel, Dark and Chocolate – which gives this beer a dark mahogany colour and a subtle dark chocolate bitterness and aroma. Serving this beer cool (about 12 ⁰C) reveals its true aroma and taste.”

Brewer’s website: aukstaitijosbravorai.lt

Wot other’s say [Comments on Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus from the internet, unedited]
😑 Smooth and very drinkable. Just slightly sweet overall. Not a roast bomb.
😐 The taste is sweet, malty with a noticeable rag. 
[Comment: Is he drinking it through his underpants?]
😊The aroma is persistent and tasty. Damn, really tasty. The aroma is clean and chocolatey.
[Comment: Now here is a chap who tells it as it is!]
💪F*ing Handsome!
[Comment: My brother! He’s got a way with words, but rarely gets away with them …]

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