Архив метки: Mick Hart reviews beer in Kaliningrad

Bochkarev British Amber Beer in Kaliningrad

**Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)**

Published: 31 August 2022 ~ Bochkarev British Amber Beer in Kaliningrad

Article 22: Bochkarev British Amber

My wife bought this beer for me.

“What have I done to deserve this?” I asked.

Then, when I had drunk it, I asked the same question: “What have I done to deserve this?” ~ but in a different tone.

The important thing is that we wouldn’t be allowed to drink it in the UK, at least not unless we wrapped the bottle in a flag of a different country, as the Union Jack has been radicalised by oversensitive ethnics operating under the auspices of liberal-left self-culture loathers.

Recalling how racist it was to fly the national flag during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, I wasted no time in removing the cap from the bottle, took a quick whiff, made a couple of notes, decanted it into my beer glass and hid the bottle behind a nearby chair. And then I remembered that I was not in the UK but drinking beer in Russia, where, oddly enough, nobody seemed to mind if my bottle displayed a Union Jack or not.

I must say that whenever I see bottled beers which are flag- or otherwise-affiliated with countries of distant origin, particularly western countries and more specifically England, I tend to avoid them or, failing that, buy them out of curiosity but rarely make the mistake again.

Thus, I remind you that it was not I who purchased this ‘anglicised’ beer, but my wife. Not that I am complaining: Wives who buy husbands beer are why they are wives in the first place, not left on the shelf like Watneys; they exhibit a finely tuned awareness of the status quo and a responsibility to it that makes anything, even anything vaguely feministic, almost acceptable and often excusable. But as redeemable as such commendable actions are, what wives don’t know about beers you couldn’t fit into Biden’s mind, so let that be an end to the matter.

Relying on the same nose that I was born with, rather than a sex-changed appendage, whilst making allowances for its toxic masculinity, it had me know that the Beer that I was smelling was a hoppy thing overly mixed with blackberries and infused with the essence of Vimto.

The mixture poured into the glass rapidly. I was thirsty. It gave a froth and then quickly took it back again, like a present I didn’t deserve, and what was left on the sides of the glass couldn’t be bothered to stay.

The first sip was like thrusting your head into a mixed bag of fruit in search of hops ~ “Come out with your hops up, we know you’re in there!” And sure enough, after some coaxing the hops came out, yet not with a white but purple flag. Can you drink a colour? The chemical fruit intensifies as it descends in the gullet, yet although the hue is a faint light amber your mind is fixed on purple. I believe it’s what’s called a trick of the light.

Bochkarev British Amber Beer in Kaliningrad

At a very sensible 4.3% OG, alcohol content can play no part in delivering the firm impression that you are consuming a very sweet energy drink packed with glucose and fructose or that, whilst you were looking the other way in search of a real beer, someone snuck up behind you and stuck a stick of rock in your glass. Similar things can happen, I’m told, if you turn your back in Brighton.

With this exception noted, I have to say that Bochkarev British Amber is possibly the most unBritish beer that I have ever tasted, and if this is Heineken at its best then thank the lord that they have Fd off from Russia (ie, Finally decided to go).

I do not pretend to speak for everyone, since your taste is probably different to mine and mine is probably better. Nevertheless, Bochkarev British Amber could explain why certain Russian celebrities took European holidays at the coincidental times that they did and that when Heineken took a similar holiday they returned to the safety of a decent beer. Like the death of Freddie Mills in 1960s’ London, Bochkarev British Amber ~ what it is made of, why they bother to stew it and why they call it British ~ may forever remain a mystery.

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Bochkarev British Amber
Brewer: Heineken Brewery
Where it is brewed: St Petersburg
Bottle capacity: 1.35 litre
Strength: 4.3%
Price: It cost me about 187 roubles (£2.53 pence) [at time of writing!]
Appearance: A shade amberish
Aroma: It doesn’t smell like beer
Taste: It doesn’t taste like beer
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: Counterfeit British
Would you buy it again? No
Marks out of 10: 2

*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.

Cesky Kabancek Beer in Kaliningrad

**Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)**

Published: 5 August 2022 ~ Cesky Kabancek Beer in Kaliningrad

Article 21: Cesky Kabancek (Czech Boar)

Before we start, take a look at the photograph that follows.

I know what you’re thinking. Well, that’s a rum way to introduce a post that purports to be a beer review. But what do you see on the table, apart from that lovely old biscuit tin from England? You see a bar of chocolate, two sachets of meaty cat food, two packets of crunchy cat biscuits, a 1000 rouble note and a pile of medications. My wife, olga, left these for me before setting off for a weekend at the dacha, knowing that in her absence I would be sedulously embarking upon another rigorous research project into the variegated world of beer tastes and qualities. The contents of the table represent a weekend’s survival kit. Not that I was about to sit down with a beer and two plates of cat’s grub. I’m odd like this: I much prefer peanuts, olives and cheese myself, but the moggy needs his food as much as I need my beer. He also likes the odd piece of chocolate. He’s a most extraordinary cat: a ginger version of Tomcat Murr.

The 1000 rouble note would eventually be exchanged for a beer from the local supermarket, along with carefully selected not-for-cats snacks and as for the Gaviscon and Omeprazole, well I should think they are self-explanatory.

The beer that was given to me in exchange for that piece of paper with the figure 1000 printed across it, comes wrapped in a brown paper bag. The bottle within the bag has no commercial label, just one describing the contents, where the beer is made, who it is who makes it and other official trading stuff. All this is written on a small, plain label and in print the size of a pin head, so once the bottle is out of the bag, without the aid of a microscope, you won’t know what you’re drinking.

The bag says it all, however, and in a rather cute and attractive way.

Working purely from presentation, initially I could not make up my mind whether this beer fitted comfortably into my ‘bog standard beers from supermarkets’ category or whether it should be included in a new series on which I am currently ‘working’ (ah, hem) titled craft and speciality beers.

Eventually, and rapidly, pressured by the desire to sup not think, I decided to go ahead and review it within the beers purveyed through supermarkets’ category, justifying my verdict on the grounds that since it was bought in such an establishment who could argue otherwise.

However, not wanting to expose myself for the guzzler that I am, before whipping the top off and splashing the beer eagerly into my glass, I took a calculated moment to observe the packaging ~ sort of thoughtfully like ~ as if by doing so I would exculpate myself from all and any accusations of being nothing more than a beer-swilling lush.

Ye of little faith might consider my brief excursion into the world of packaging to be nothing more than a rather crude and obvious workaround, but the benefit of the doubt seems to lie in my favour. At least I am inclined to think so. Why else would I linger lovingly at the sight of a pig with a snarled snout and two curling tusks when I could be getting it down my neck? I believe that this particular method of beer drinking, of ‘getting it down one’s neck’, is reserved for the benefit classes (formerly working class) who populate Northern England, some perilously close to Haggis country where goodness knows where they ‘get it’, possibly up their kilts!

But of tartans and tarts there were none. The brown bag into which the bottle is dunked has a big-toothed porker (Does she come from Rushden? Check for tats!) standing proudly above a foaming tankard of beer (I suppose she must.) beneath which is written ‘Live’ ‘Nonfiltered’. This tells you that the beer is made from natural substances with no additional additives and/or preservatives, which also tells you that it has a lower shelf-life threshold than its filtered counterparts, so you’d better get it down you, one way or another, as swiftly as you can.

Above: It’s worth buying the beer for the packaging!

I’d looked at the bag for long enough (Am I still in Rushden?) Now it was time to dispose of the beer.

For this purpose, I selected one of the Soviet tankards given to me by Stas, which once occupied the little drinks cabinet in Victor Ryabinin’s Studio. Beer and sentiment go well together.

The first whiff of Cesky Kabancek does not go against the grain, but it is definitely and robustly grainy. It smells like a brew with tusks, but with an OG of 4.4%, which is pretty tender in this here drinking neck of the woods (Get it down your neck!), the aroma belies the alcohol content. Intermingled with the boar musk, subtle scents of an aromatic nature rise but struggle to the surface adding a touch of Je ne sais quoi. But who cares what it smells like when you are showing off in French?

Cesky pours into the glass in a light ambered way and because it is unfiltered, it is naturally hazy. After a couple of bottles most beers look hazy; after seven so is everything else.

“Excuse me, do you have the time?”

“For what?”

“I mean the time!” pointing at my watch.

“Yes, I do thanks.” Relenting and looking at watch: “It’s seven pints past sobriety …”

As a beer connoisseur, not a lager lout, I would only be drinking one litre of Cesky, and after another would call it a night. Or anything anybody wants me to.

I said, before everything went silly, that on taking the top off the bottle the beer had thrown a grainy aroma, which was no word of a lie, but the taste had a lot more going for it. It was fruity, zesty with a clean refreshing finish and a mellow aftertaste. It had palate appeal and, at 4.4% strength, recommended itself as a good session beer.

Nevertheless, if it is a real Czech beer that you are after or even expecting, Caveat Emptor!

Just because I was satisfied with it, does not mean that everybody, or even anybody else, shares the same opinion. Beer reviewers far more accomplished than myself appear to have ganged up on Cesky Kabancek and are telling the world via the internet that it is not all that one would want it to be.

First off, what is all this with Czech and boar! When did Czech and boar ever go together? You’ll be naming British beer Brit Mountain Goat from the Fens next! Thus, the consensus has it that Cesky Kabancek masquerades as Czech only insofar as the packaging allows. Once inside the bag, all you’ve got is a plain PET bottle and once inside the bottle you’ve got a ‘beer drink’ as distinct from beer. Why is this? Because the mix is said to contain ‘fragrant additives’ and has loosely attributed wheat beer characteristics.

For all this ~ what would you call it, skullduggery or effective marketing? ~ the brew is easy to drink, satisfying and has no definable flavour drawbacks or repercussive faults. And if I was not to tell you the truth, then I would be lying, for I consider Cesky Kabancek to be one of the better brands from Baltika Brewery that I have drunk so far.

As they say in beer-drinking circles, and even somewhere outside of them, there’s no accounting for taste!

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Cesky Kabancek
Brewer: Baltika Brewery
Where it is brewed: St Petersburg
Bottle capacity: 1litre
Strength: 4.4%
Price: It cost me about 187 roubles (£2.53 pence) [at time of writing!]
Appearance: Hazy amber
Aroma: I’m working on it!
Taste: A little bit of this and that
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: A convincing paper bag
Would you buy it again? It depends on the competition
Marks out of 10: 6

Lidskae Staryi Zamak Beer in Kaliningrad

**Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)**

Published: 30 June 2022 ~ Lidskae Staryi Zamak Beer in Kaliningrad

Article 20: Lidskae Staryi Zamak

Note: Many thanks to Mr … er, I think his name was Mr Sober, who wrote to inform me that the bottle photographs originally included in this post bore no connection whatsoever to the beer that I was writing about. What better recommendation for Lidskae Staryi Zamak beer could you ask for!

Needing an excuse to drink beer is not an affliction from which I personally suffer, but with all these articles in the UK media obsessing on the possibility of WWIII and nuclear strikes, I thought it would be prudent of me to take cover in my local shop and dodging incoming sanctions come out with a bottle of beer, or two.

Leonard Cohen named his valedictory album, You want it darker. But I didn’t. I was looking for a light beer, which is to say a light-in-colour beer. The strength was of no importance, but I did want something with taste.

Having enjoyed the Belarus-brewed beer Lidskae Aksamitnae, I opted to try the light version, Lidskae Staryi Zamak. If I had wanted a strong beer, I would not have been disappointed, as Staryi Zamak weighs in at an impressive 6.2%, which is higher in alcohol content than its ‘black as the ace of spades’ brother.

They tell me that this is a bottom fermenting beer, which could mean different things to different people, but for beer afficionados and brewing types, this information has important implications, which neither you nor I will dwell on because we are far too busy taking off the bottle top and smelling.

“Hello, is that Nose?”

“Hello, Nose here.”

“Tell me Nose, what do you detect?”

“Beer!”

“Yes, well, that’s a good start. Anything else?”

“It’s pungent …”

“Still talking about the beer?”

“Yes. No, wait a minute, it’s grainy; yes, definitely grainy. No, hold hard, its … it’s fragrant, a teeny-weeny bit fragrant … Oh, what a to do! It’s so hard to smell anything with the wokist stench of fear rising from Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter …”

“What’s that, Nose. You’re cracking up. Did you say musky or melon?”

“Bottom fermenting …”

“We’ve done that one. I know, what about all three?”

“Ay?”

“Pungent, grainy and fragrant?”

“If you like. But he’s still a transphobe!”

Hmm, must be a liberal-left nose.

We won’t ask liberal-left tongue about taste. It will be far too busy in the coming weeks now that Elon Musk is taking over Twatter.

Lidskae Staryi Zamak Beer

To recap: here we have a 6.2% pale-straw coloured, bottom-fermenting lager, with a pungent, grainy, fragrant liberal-left nose.

Moving on to taste, all these things are present (except the liberal left, thank heavens). Lidskae Staryi Zamak is an interesting blend of flavours, sweet and bitter at one and the same time but rhapsodically blended with no ragged edges. The finish is light and hoppy, although the aftertaste becomes, owing no doubt to the strength, substantial, not heavy exactly but mature and rounded ~ shaped largely like most women after they’ve gone through the menopause.

Corsets nice to drink with food, but have you noticed how irritating some beer reviewers can be in this respect? It’s all very well to say that this beer or that beer goes well with whole roasted peacock, stuffed venison and absent McDonald’s but unless you are Henry the Eighth such lightweight delicacies may not be at hand (which is especially true of McDonald’s). I’ll settle for saying that you won’t go far wrong with a big bag of nuts, a packet of flavoured crisps and a bowl of olives.

Lidskae Staryi Zamak, not to be confused with You Big Hairy Wassock, which is a beer that is drunk in the North of England whilst wearing a pigeon and fancying flat caps (latterly scarves more likely), is a good strong and full-bodied beer but not so overpowering that it does not possess the potential to bring out the best in good-flavoured foods and selected piquant snacks.

Lidskae Staryi Zamak Beer in Kaliningrad — Lidskae Staryi Zamak Beer

I like this beer as much if not more than I liked its black sister (or was that it’s black brother?), Lidskae Aksamitnae. I enjoyed it. It clung to the glass, as I did, and after a couple of bottles I also clung to the stair rail.

I was head over heels, with delight that is, which is a big improvement, I’m sure you’ll agree, on the alternative arse over head. And the overheads are by no means bad at 197 a bottle (we are talking payment in roubles, of course!).

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Lidskae Staryi Zamak
Brewer: Leedska piva
Where it is brewed: Lida, Belarus
Bottle capacity: 1.5 litre
Strength: 6.2%
Price: It cost me about 197 roubles (2.20 pence) [at time of writing!]
Appearance: Pale
Aroma: Subtle mix of grain and herbs
Taste: Full bodied, rounded
Fizz amplitude: 3/10
Label/Marketing: Traditional
Would you buy it again? I am quite sure I will
Marks out of 10: 8

Cesky Medved Beer in Kaliningrad

**Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)**

Published: 19 January 2022 ~ Cesky Medved Beer in Kaliningrad

Article 18: Cesky Medved

What’s not to like about a bear drinking a pint of beer? It’s so Russian. Look at him there on the label, that big cheeky grin and that foaming, frothing tankard. But wait! There’s something not quite right! It’s nothing to do with the bear. We all know that bears have big cheeky grins and drink beer. No, it’s the big beery head. Not the big beary head, but the soap-sudded head on top of the beer.

You see, Cesky Medved does not pour like that. It has no gargantuan head, in fact, it has very little head of which to speak. In fact, it’s as flat as your hat.

Ahh, that explains it, both the grin and the froth: our loveable old bear is not drinking Cesky Medved at all, he’s supping away at something completely different.

Cesky Medved Beer in Kaliningrad

Here is a quote about Cesky Medved that was posted to a beer-review website. The website is Russian and (surprise, surprise) most of the comments posted there are in Russian. This comment may have lost something in its Google translation, but I am sure you get the drift:

“The aroma [of Cesky Medved] is artificial, candy-fruity. That’s what cheap fruity beer drinks smell like. (Malt extract?) … the same, sweet with sourness and notes of hop extract or oil … I don’t know what they use there, but the beer is very bad.”

To be brutally frank, this beer smells like … I don’t know what? When I first lifted the bottle lid and attempted to whiff it, I thought for a moment that I had forgotten to take off my face mask. (Please don’t mock. I am certain that there are some of you out there, and you know who you are, who live in your masks day and night!) But gradually, with the bottle shoved up my hooter as you would a decongestant, a pungency filtered through.

I would not describe the smell of Cesky Medved as sweet or ‘candy-fruity’, but rather more on the sour side with an indiscernible back-twang, the sort of thing you sometimes get when you are offered a drink of something and the cup that you are drinking out of has not been washed up properly.

What had not smelt strong in the bottle, however, had an accumulative effect as it was served to the glass. Thereupon, the more subtle scents evaporated, leaving in their wake a certain lingering muskiness.

As the beer poured hazy and as flat as a road-killed rabbit, the appearance and smell conjoined to produce a disconcerting thought, that of a cobbled-together recipe strained through last week’s gym sock. It did not help any that, with this thought in mind, just as I was about to take my first sip, there was Jimmy Saville peering at me from Google Images all sweaty in his track suit. “How’s about that, then?”

What was it that he had carved into his gravestone in Scarborough before some well-meaning soul scrubbed it out? Ahh yes, I remember, “It was good whilst it lasted”! I am sure that this reference was to life in general and not to a glass of Cesky Medved.

I must say that with no head, medium fizz, a dish-water haziness and the smell of Saville’s socks, somehow Cesky Medved managed to be drinkable. Certainly, for the nominal amount that I paid for the pleasure, 110 roubles (£1.06) , I was not about to complain. No, I thought, I would save that for later, when, for example, I write this review.

My last word on the subject is that there are exemplary beers, excellent beers, good beers, satisfactory beers, tolerable beers, insipid beers and bad beers. This bear wasn’t that bad.

It’s a bear-faced lie!!

#########################

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Cesky Medved
Brewer: Baltika Breweries
Where it is brewed: Yaroslavl, Russia
Bottle capacity: 1.35 litre
Strength: 4.6%
Price: It cost me about 110 roubles (1.06 pence)
Appearance: Light, unfiltered
Aroma: You could call it that
Taste: Acquired
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: A cheeky, grinning bear
Would you buy it again? Never ever say never
Marks out of 10: 3.5

Amstel Bier in Kaliningrad

**Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)**

Article 17: Amstel Bier

Published: 21 November 2021 ~ Amstel Bier in Kaliningrad

So, if you don’t like pilsner what are you doing buying it? That’s easy. It was on special offer at my local supermarket, and as I am saving money to buy myself a ticket to Anywhere before the whole world is renamed Vaccination to make sense of the universality of the Vaccination Passport, at 90 roubles, less than a quid, as Abba used to say, ‘how could I resist you!’

Amstel Bier’s marketing strategy relies for its gravitas, if not its gravity, on that ubiquitous word of the beer-drinking world ‘premium’. Next to ‘love’, it is probably the most overused, abstruse, misunderstood and misappropriated word of all time. Although it occupies many a ‘premium’ slot, if not an entire chapter, in the Beer Posers’ Dictionary, it would not, in its day-to-day marketing application, be permitted as much as a footnote in the Dictionary of Truth (which is not published under licence to any of the Davos set).

Gold labels and award-winning medallions are often used in conjunction with the word ‘premium’, and it does not hurt any to lend to the product a date in antiquity, thus enabling it to draw from the not-so mythical notion that everything that was produced in the past that did not need a Vaccination Passport or be stamped with a QR code was quality or, to define ‘premium’, was of ‘superior quality’ ~ as was life itself ~ once. Thus, Amstel’s bottle incorporates the lot: the gold label, the word ‘premium’ and a date when the world was real ~ 1870.

The Carlsberg Company saw the funny side of this marketing coin many years ago. They flipped the irony of it into their award-winning marketing slogan, ‘Carlsberg, probably the best beer in the world,’ proving to the world that at least they could laugh up their sleeve, which is more than can be said for Watney’s, with it’s disingenuous, ‘Roll out Red Barrel, Let’s have a barrel of fun!’ ~ which drinking it was anything but.

When you see a product labelled in this way, especially a beer, the ‘premium’ promise first supposedly sells it to you and then, before you take the top off the bottle, influences your opinion, so that, unless you are really studying it, when swilling it back with your mates, this little gold word keeps ringing around your taste buds, going ‘Premium! [yum, yum] … Premium! [yum, yum]’.

Amstel Bier in Kaliningrad

With an introduction of this nature, you could easily jump to the wrong conclusion that I am now going to say that Amstel is crap, but that would be too easy.

Let’s take the top off first and check its ‘nose’, as the pretentious like to say.

My first reaction was to reach for my NHS Do-It-Yourself Coronavirus Testing Kit, because I couldn’t smell a thing. No, that’s not altogether true. I could smell something. I think it was a rat. I am not saying that the beer smelt like a rat, because I have never snorted rat. I use the term loosely, as I might, if I was a brewster, use the word ‘premium’. In other words, I could smell nothing, no rat no premium, and certainly nothing that could justify anything approaching the notion of ‘superior quality’.

I sniffed the top of the bottle with the cap off for such an inordinate length of time that Ginger, our cat, thought he must be missing out on something and tried to get in on the act. But after the briefest second, he walked away in disgust without so much as a ‘buy it again’ or just a ‘meeoww’ for that matter.

I didn’t want to end up with the bottle stuck to the end of my nose and be rushed off to hospital in one of those little white Russian ambulances with the siren blaring ‘snout stuck, snout stuck, snout stuck’, so I gave up after five minutes, concluding that I had detected a faint something or other, an intriguing cross, you might say, between musk and tinniness.

When I eventually poured it into my glass, I found myself staring at a pale amber liquid, with very little head, which, as soon as it saw me, made a fast exit. I think this is what is known in beer reviewers’ speak as ‘having two fingers’, or should that be giving two fingers?

Most people who occasionally drink pilsners but usually drink something else, tell me that pilsner appeals to their taste in summer because served cold ~ how else? ~ it is light, crisp and refreshing. From that statement, let us extrapolate the word ‘crisp’. Amstel Bier isn’t. No matter how you drink it ~ swig, gulp or roll it around your mouth ~ crispness doesn’t come into it, so, if that is what you are looking for, you won’t find it in Amstel. Make no mistake about that! (Oooh, he can be so manly when he talks about beer!)

However, Amstel is not without flavour: it is mellow, smooth, rounded and gives the lie to the notion that it is all about tininess and not about taste. Some beers, especially some lagers, go down like a lead weight, but the Amstel finish is not unpleasant. It doesn’t really justify the self-presumptuous handshake of the two chums on the front of the bottle leaning out of their stamps of approval ~ perhaps they have just been vaccinated and are about to open a Facebook account ~ but thin and wishy-washy beers never have an aftertaste (think Watney’s!), and this one certainly has.

In fact, Amstel has a two-phase aftertaste: the first is surprising and seems to hit the spot, but as it Victor Matures it does not so much as sock it to you as socks it to you. In Amstel’s defence, pilsners tend to do this to me generally, so it is by no means unique in this respect either, but in this particular case after five minutes had elapsed, I found myself looking for words to describe the after-aftertaste in my cockney rhyming slang almanac, where all I was able to find was something to do with Scotsmen.

I am not saying that Amstel needs to pull its socks up, as I hear tell that if it is not a popular lager on the other side of Hadrian’s Wall, the Greeks can’t get enough of it. This may have something to do with the fact that the Athenian Brewery in Greece is now owned by Heineken and as Heineken brew Amstel, well, work it out for yourself.

Amstel was originally brewed at the Amstel Brewery in Dutchland. It has a proud heritage, going back to 1870 (you can see the date on the Amstel bottles). However, it was taken over by Heineken International in 1968, who moved production of Amstel to their principal plant at Zoeterwoude in the Netherlands.

I am not sure whether the Chief Brewer, Jock Strap, still works for them or not.

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Amstel Bier
Brewer: Heineken
Where it is brewed: Zoeterwoude, Netherlands
Bottle capacity: 1.3 litre
Strength: 4.1%
Price: It cost me about 90 roubles (91 pence)
Appearance: Pale-amber
Aroma: Faint
Taste: It does have some
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: ‘Premium’
Would you buy it again? If the price is right!
Marks out of 10: 4