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

Article 5: Zhigulevskoye Beer

As stated in my last beer review, my choice of supermarket-bought bottled beer in Kaliningrad is not influenced in any way by recommendation of any kind, which includes word of mouth. Neither do I purchase beer on the basis of its strength. The only selection criteria that I use is (i) have I drunk it before? (ii) do I like the label? As I know my Russian A Б B, I can sometimes cobble the name of the beer together. Not that it means very much, but as you might guess that was not the case with this particular brand, which when translated into English spells ‘Zhigulevskoye’.

Previous articles in this series:
Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad
Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad
Cedar Wood Beer in Kaliningrad
Gold Mine Beer in Kaliningrad

I was attracted to this particular beer, as opposed to the many others on offer, as the label has a distinctly nostalgic resonance. Look at it: The lower half of the label is the colour of ripe corn, the upper a bright blue sky. In the foreground, stationed on the yellow bed, stands one of those old Soviet roadside tankers, the ones that used to dispense peeva  (beer) but which, in later years, were phased out as mobile meeting points with the greater uptake of conventional bars.

When I first came to Kaliningrad in the year 2000, there were still quite a few of these little yellow containers on wheels in evidence, but as the popularity of bars and licensed restaurants increased they were put out to pasture, making a comeback in later years for the dispensation of one of Russia’s most  popular drinks, Kvass, an unusual beverage with an acquired taste made from fermented rye bread. Not that this would interest you lushes, as Kvass is alcohol-free.

In this pictorial incarnation, the one on the beer bottle, the little two-wheeled tanker proudly displays the word ‘beer’, peeva, in Cyrillic script. At the dispensing end, a young lady sits, a small shelf in front of her on which can be seen two ‘pint’ glasses. There are trees in the background and peeping through them the red pantiled rooftops and tall rustic chimneys of small cottages. The scene is one of perfect idyll. It captures superbly the Soviet concept of harmonic relationship between people and Mother Earth, and the impression is made complete by one of the USSR’s most simple but potent symbols, the yellow ear of wheat.

The name of the beer (which, as history denotes, is fairly unpronounceable in English) is written at a sloping angle across the front of the label in a deep-blue flowing Cyrillic script and the whole ensemble edified by an award-winning stamp of quality, a circular medallion containing a strong and manly thumbs-up symbol.

When I asked my wife, Olga, what the unpronounceable name of the beer meant in English, she was unable to translate, but, after several attempts to solve the riddle with the help of the internet, it turned out that the name equated to a motor vehicle! So, here I was sitting in my Russian attic drinking a pint of Lada!

As my friend John Hynes would say, and does say, “You couldn’t make it up!” Actually, he would say, and does say, “You couldn’t make this shit up!” but as the expletive can only confer an inapplicable derogation, for the sake of propriety and for accuracy we will dispense with this unfortunate word and focus instead on dispensing the beer.

Intrigued by the vehicle anomaly, Olga took to the internet via her mobile phone and connecting with a Russian site she was soon able to supply me with some interesting background information.

History of Zhigulevskoye Beer Kaliningrad Russia

The story goes that originally Zhigulevskoye was called ‘Viennese Beer’. It first saw life when Austrian aristocrat and businessman Alfred von Vacano established his Zhiguli Brewery in Samara in the early 1880s. The beer proved to be extremely popular but unfortunately for Alfred, come the Russian revolution in 1917, he was not. He ended up in Austria, his brewery confiscated, passed into the hands of the new Russian state.

Thus captured, Alfred’s extremely popular beer fell victim to the communist zeal for outlawing anything and everything that had a suspect bourgeoisie ring to it, and this was reflected in the beer’s name change from something that once could have been very well easy to say to Zhigulevskoye ~ proudly named after a Soviet car.

In Soviet times the brand had the best kind of monopoly that any beer can have ~ it was almost if not exclusive. At the height of its popularity, it was dispensed from 700 breweries and was exported to a number of different countries. Ironically, its international success was hampered by its name, which was not only difficult to pronounce but in some countries resembled words of a vulgar or impolite nature. The crude connotations of similar sounding words did not apply in England, where the beer was exported for a short while but simply did not catch on. How could it when we had Watney’s Pale Ale!!

Following the dissolution of the USSR, former satellite countries continued to brew Zhigulevskoye, most notably Carlsberg and Baltika brewers from their outlets in the Ukraine. Nevertheless, purists, romanticists and nostalgic drinkers stick firmly to their revolutionary guns where Zhigulevskoye is concerned, refusing to acknowledge true Zhigulevskoye unless it is brewed in Samara.

Voice off stage: Get on with it!

So, how did I find my 2020 version of Zhigulevskoye?

For all that I have read and for all that I have said, I am afraid to say that I cannot commit myself to use any other evaluative word other than that of ‘moderate’. The beer has a golden hue, a soft, mellow, traditional lager taste, is light on the palate, with a distant scent of hops, is easy to drink and quite refreshing, but what Alfred von Vacano would make of it, is anybody’s guess.

Call me an old (no, that’s reserved for people who really know me and liberals who think they do), old sentimentalist, but what I could not discern in flavour I derived more, as I supped away at Zhigulevskoye, from the label on the bottle. Even had there been nothing to recommend it, and this is not true, I could never bring myself to trash such an emblem of historic import. I know this lacks impartiality, but then this is why I named this series of posts, Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad.

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Zhigulevskoye (after 2 x 1.5 litre bottles you can pronounce it)
Brewer: More than one, including Baltika and Carlsberg
Where it is brewed: Lots of places but Samara is its original birth place
Bottle capacity: 1.5 litres
Strength: 4.5% (strength varies depending on brewery)
Price: It cost me about 112 rubles (£1.16)
Appearance: A lovely yellow corn
Aroma: Faint this ‘n’ that
Taste: Light, traditional pale lager taste
Fizz amplitude: 5/10
Label/Marketing: Nostalgists heaven
Would you buy it again? Yes, whenever I am in a Soviet mood

*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.

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