Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Kanapinis (dark)
Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad
30 January 2024 ~ Kanapinis Dark in Kaliningrad How Good is It?
Leonard Cohen named his valedictory album You want it darker. Certainly, there were two periods in my own life when I wanted nothing more. The darkness of the two epochs were not exclusive to themselves, they commingled with each other, but the impulse to which they responded rose to prominence at separate times and the realm of human existence in which they dwelt could not be more distinct, or instinctively categorical, for one had to do with thought and feeling, the other with carnal desire.
As for the first, my predilections were helped not a little by the dulcet tones and soul-venting lyrics that Mr Cohen excelled in, but the inspirational spring that fed the river of melancholia arose from the deep and dark Romanticism of the celebrated American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The second instance I will leave unread, preferring for the moment to consign it to the incubation of your fetid and, I suspect, already bated penchant for perversion, and whilst you are trying to work it out, we will think of and also drink another outstanding beer, one that is dark but sweet not bitter.
The beer in question, and there is no question in my mind that in the land of beautiful beers it is the half-sister of Aphrodite (clue!), is the dark and dusky version of a Lithuanian beer whose unalloyed and succulent pleasures I sought to describe in my last review. I refer, of course, to that wonderful brew Kanapinis (light).
Kanapinis Dark in Kaliningrad How Good is It?
Santana Abraxas sang, “I’ve got a black magic woman” (clue!); Leslie Phillips, that smooth, saucy old English philanderer of the British silver screen, was forever forgetting the Black Tower (clue!) and forgetting to put his trousers on; the Rolling Stones told loyal fans they wanted to ‘paint it black’ (clue!); Deep Purple rocked ‘Black Night’ (clue!); Black Sabbath were black by name and also black by nature (clue!); and in the blackout during the war to numerous men-starved English women Americans came as Errol Flynn and left as Bertold Weisner (clue!).
Kanapinis dark is one of those brews that contains no additives. Water, caramel, barley malt, hops and beer yeast, that’s what’s in it. The brewers, Aukštaitijos Bravorai, have remained faithful to the traditional brewing method for many years, honouring the original recipe, open fermentation and a lengthy and assiduously monitored maturation process.
The Kanapinis siblings, the pale and the black, remind me of black and tan, not the one you can’t say in Ireland but the one you can make in a glass. They co-exist as though in the unification of innate quality, they are irredeemably colour blind, as though no one or the other vie to be thought of as anything more, and thought about together, as a lovely potable, quite inseparable, palate-tactile portable pair.
Beer review links:
[Butauty] [Kanapinis (light)]
Taking the top off a Kanapinis ~ and remember, Kanapinis has one of those lightning toggle tops otherwise known as a Quillfeldt after the excellent chap who invented it ~ the air apparent is aerosoled with a sweet and musky smell, an enticing natural blend infused with heady caramels subtly tinctured with flavoursome malts, and when the beer pours into the glass it does so with a rich, a prepossessing chocolate head, the sort of thing that would be hard to sip if you had recently taken to wearing an RAF moustache and had as yet to learn proficiency in how to manoeuvre it properly.
“Please excuse my presumption, sir, but do you possess a licence for that hairy thing above your top lip?”
Without a Freddie Mercury or anything of the like to impede your drinking progress, the frothing foam incurs no danger, and once you have taken the plunge and dived headlong right in there, having sampled (and thus pre-judging) the quality of its paler version, the first sip is exactly as you know it should be, and had no doubt it would be. It is as promising as it smells, as seductive in taste as it looks and as satisfying from fart to stinish as any beer that you’ve ever made love to, and you can’t say darker than that!
Kanapinis Dark in Kaliningrad How Good is It?
Frank Sinatra, I’m sure, would be monotoned pleased to hear you say that Kanapinis goes ‘all the way’. Still, there’s little to choose between the two sisters, as both are full-bodied brews, and if ever colour was not an issue, then here is the perfect example: Sup! Sup! Sup! Ahhh!
If I had to choose between light or dark, the choice would be a difficult one, but should you care to bank roll me to a bottle of the dark stuff, I would thankee most kindly, sir, and do my best to get stuck in.
Old beer drinkers never shrink (except on the worst occasions) when it comes to revealing their true colours.
BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: Kanapinis (Dark)
Brewer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai
Where it is brewed: Lithuania
Bottle capacity: 1litre
Strength: 5.3%
Price: It cost me about 288 roubles (£2.62)
Appearance: Dark and charcoally
Aroma: Musky malts and burnt caramel
Taste: Yum Yum
Fizz amplitude: 3/10
Label/Marketing: Pop Art/Cartoon
Would you buy it again? And again
Beer rating
About the beer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai | Kanapinis
The brewer’s website has this to say about Kanapinis dark:
“CANNABIS unfiltered dark beer: This beer is brewed using only natural ingredients ~ water, malt, hops and yeast. The combination of caramel malts used in the production of this beer gives this beer a rich ruby colour and a light burnt caramel bitterness.”
Brewer’s website: aukstaitijosbravorai.lt
Wot other’s say [Comments on Kanapinis (dark) beer from the internet, unedited]
😑Taste is close to aroma, but with harsh yeasty note.
[Comment: Yeasty note, yes; harsh, no]
😐Kanapinis Dark is, frankly, so-so. If you can still feel the taste in the first half of the sip, then there is practically nothing left of it.
[Comment: A man with a rather peculiar tongue!]
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