Tag Archives: Beer drinking Kaliningrad

Art Depot Restaurant Kaliningrad is right on track

Mick Hart’s one-track mind takes him to Art Depot

17 March 2025 ~ Art Depot Restaurant Kaliningrad is right on track

Of all the roles I have played, or wanted to play, I never considered myself to be a second Bruce Reynolds. But here I was, about to pull off in my mind the world’s Second Great Train Robbery.

Everything was set; planned to the very last detail. Nothing had been left to chance. The moment my accomplice hit the switch, the moment the lights went down, it would happen; unbeknown to and unseen by everyone, history would repeat itself. And when the lights came up again, as they would on cue, the train and its trucks would still be there, but as for its valuable cargo, all that would remain of that was the empty space where it once had been.

This was me then, watching intently as the train and its freight wagons loaded down with beers trundled past at eyebrow height, but with my mind at a lonely railway bridge tucked away in rural Buckinghamshire, which, in the summer of 1963, was about to enter the annals of criminal history.

When they finally caught up with Bruce Reynolds, they thought that they had collared the mastermind behind the most audacious heist of all time, but how mistaken they must have been. For had they got it right, I could hardly have been sitting here, in Kaliningrad’s Art Depot Beer Bar, free to monitor the freight cars of booze as they passed mesmerically before my eyes.

Art Depot Restaurant Kaliningrad is right on track

The less dramatic but no less novel circumstances in which I found myself was that of watching beer and other intoxicants being delivered to customers’ tables by way of a model train. Although it may seem that I am merely substituting a long-held boyhood fantasy for something from Alice in Wonderland, I am firmly back from both, biding my time in a world where the cliché ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ was beginning to make me wonder why my entire life had been challenged by a second-hand lie detector.

A model train full of beer in Kaliningrad

I was actually sitting beneath the Gothic-vaulted red-brick ceiling of a series of interconnecting catacombs. Whoops, there it goes again! My imagination wandering at will where it will wilfully wander. Not exactly catacombs, but a subterranean space occupied long ago by an elaborate network of beer cellars belonging to Ponart Brewery, which, in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries was the largest brewery in Königsberg. This environment met my every requirement, blending the architectural style I love with social history, brewery history and my personal history of drinking beer.

And yet I had not imbibed sufficiently for me to invent the existence of a scaled-down railway that permitted drinks to be conveyed direct from bar to customer.

Art Depot Restaurant Kaliningrad

The train-delivery concept is as intriguing, as it is entertaining as it is educational. The train leaves Königsberg station, passes through the suburbs of Kaliningrad as they are today and from there heads out into the past across the Königsberg countryside.

To achieve this effect, models detailed in construction mark the route of the train and the settlements at which it stops, the old German names of which fastened to the wall, by corresponding to the booth-style seating, act like table numbers, enabling the bar staff to literally keep tabs on customers and their tariffs. The miniature version of Kaliningrad’s Central Station (once Königsberg Hauptbahnhof) from which the beer train leaves, stands proudly and unmistakeably, thanks to the accurate portrayal of its 1930s’ postmodern façade, at the point where all good beer journeys start, which is, of course, the bar.

Zelenogradsk at a bar in Ponart Brewery complex

To announce the departure of the train and the onset of one’s drinks, a bell is heard to ring, and the train carrying its valuable cargo steams urgently out of Central Station, travelling via Zelenogradsk ~ observable by its Ferris wheel ~ and off across East Prussia, except in this particular instance, it is charging along the side of the wall heading in one’s direction.

Being a beer and bar enthusiast but knowing nowt about model railways, except that they make good money at auction, I am unable to enlighten those who are interested in such things as to the track gauge of the railway, but presume that I can safely say that since the train is hauling lovely big pint glasses, the track width must be considerably larger than a Hornby Double O.

I bet that even Bruce Reynolds couldn’t have told you that.

Seating beer bar restuarant in Kaliningrad

The positioning of the bar’s booth seats at 90 degrees to the wall enables the train to divert to them as a full-sized locomotive would into a railway siding. The train and its precious cargo come to rest on a platform ramped up ‘viaduct’ style across the length of each table at a height above the seated occupants’ heads. This all goes to make the arrival of one’s eagerly awaited beverages infinitely more exciting, even, from the angle viewed, spectacular, the only drawback being that the supports on which the train track rests tend to get in visions way of normal social interaction with others in your group sitting on the opposite side of the table. This disadvantage, however, may be one concealing a hidden advantage, should, for example, the company you are in necessitate some subtle moves on the social evening’s chessboard, viz ‘Amanda Woke is a bit of a lefty, we’ll hide her behind that strut!’

The novelty of Art Depot Restaurant’s train network and the modern predilection for photographing everything, whether it moves or not, is not without an intrinsic risk, for should you be distracted and not act quickly enough to remove the cargo on arrival, the train can suddenly reverse, causing more than a mild hysteria as it makes off with your drinks back to the bar from whence it came.

Mick Hart with beer arrived by train at Art Depot Restaurant Kaliningrad

Mick Hart reaching for beer from model train

It may strike you as rather odd that a beer bar housed in a former beer cellar located beneath a former brewery is not thematically predisposed to the matter of beer production, but the railway as a feature is not without connection both to the brewery itself and to the district in which the brewery stands.

A long while ago … and now

One hundred and seventy-five years ago, Ponart was little more than a village waiting to be subsumed by the expanding city of Königsberg. During this dynamic period, the district’s major employers were Schifferdecker’s Ponart Brewery and, from the 1860s to the 1900s, the Prussian Eastern Railway, which eventually came to be known as the Royal Prussian State Railways. The development of the railway system in East Prussia and Russia significantly impacted Königsberg’s commerce, stimulating demand for enlargement of the workforce.

The resultant influx of labourers generated a need for the provision of homes close to the industries the workforce would be servicing. The high-density living created by these converging influences can effectively be quantified from an observation of the housing stock type, which predominantly comprises three-storey flats built as a series of uniform terraces, and also from an estimation of the close proximity of the Pomart Brewery to the railway’s rolling-stock marshalling yard, which is crossable by a through-truss Bridge, acting as the gateway from the centre of the city to this erstwhile working-class neighbourhood.

So let that be a lesson to you!

If you think that a model train delivering beer to your table is a whimsy of a thing, it will do you no harm to know that at Art Depot Restaurant the railway theme ends not at your table but follows you into the toilets. Not the train itself, or the station master or the ticket collector, but piped noises you would expect to hear at a busy railway station.

Now, toilets are hallowed places with particular sounds of their own, so it is vitally disconcerting to hear the outside world inside of them; indeed extremely difficult when it’s “All aboard!” and the whistle blows to divorce yourself from the governing fantasy that you are actually in a station loo. Blast! I thought, having heard the whistle shrilling, the carriage doors slamming and the train a chuff, chuff, chuffing as it left without me down the tracks. I had only gone and missed the 8.30 to Nowhere! There was nothing more that I could do. Well, what else could I do? I would have to go back to the waiting room, sink another beer or two and hope that anyone watching me would mistake me for being anyone else but the man they thought I wasn’t: “That’s him! That’s not Bruce Reynolds!”

The main thing

Art Depot Restaurant
Kaliningrad, Sudostroitelnaya st., 6-8
(on the territory of the historical quarter ‘Ponart’)

Tel (reservations): +7 (963) 295 74 95

Opening times
Mon to Fri: 11am to 10pm
Sat & Sun: 12pm to 11pm

Website: Art Depot Restaurant

Double Mother T. Double Chocolate Stout Rewort

Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Double Mother T.

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

29 January 2025 ~ Double Mother T. Double Chocolate Stout Rewort

A brother of mine who came and stayed in Kaliningrad refused to drink and eat with us at the restaurant of our choice. He claimed it was too expensive. He ate and drank in a place overlooking the Upper Pond. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he chided. “You get a big pot of green tea and a large burger for next to nothing. It’s f*cking handsome!!”

Unburdened by his eloquence, I am not about to say the same or even something similar about Rewort’s Double Mother T. For starters, I wouldn’t dare, as the tin leaves me awestruck.

Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu MC, better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa was, I’m sure, a dear old soul, but whatever is she doing staring out at you like that from the side of a lowly beer can?

Unless you are one of the chosen devout, and if you are, you most likely frown on the wickedness of beer drinking, purely in brand marketing terms the presence of dear Mother T is not arguably a horse you would willingly back, and yet the one thing it doesn’t do, this image, is put you off enough to prevent your curiosity from taking the can from the shelf.

Let’s pause here a moment to reflect on the packaging. It is purely and simply a work of art, not just in its visual makeup but also in its tactility. If you see this can in a shop, you will feel the need to pick it up, and when you feel the texture, you will feel the need to buy it. After all, if it tastes as good as it feels, you are on your way to a winner.

Beer review links:

[Butauty] [Kanapinis (light)] [Kanapinis (dark)]
[Keptinis Farmhouse][Bistrampolio] [387 Osobaya Varka]

Double Mother T. is sometimes described as an imperial stout. There are two stories circulating in Russia’s beer circles pertaining to the genre imperial stout. The romantic one has it that imperial stout was commissioned by the Russian Imperial Court, brewed in Europe and then shipped to Russia by sea. The legend goes that the brew owes its strength to the safe passage of the beer, which needed to be highly hopped and amply infused with alcohol to preserve it on its long sea voyage. Story number two is somewhat less adventurous. It suggests that the Russian Imperial Court liked its beers rich and strong, and wallah! Mother T!

I confess, and I felt the need to do so as soon as I saw the tin, that I prefer the sea-salt legend, with its accent on discernment, rather more than I do the notion of the Russian Imperial Court looking for a recipe on which to get pissed quick. I could go on to gild the lily, alluding to sailing ships of oak, the billowing of the unfurled sails, the splashing foam of the ocean waves as the bow cuts through the silver-blue briny, but all of that means nothing to me. I am a steadfast landlubber, who is not fit to shovel (Could you help with a rhyme?) coal from one ship to another.

I confess, however (I’m at it again. It’s that picture of Mother T.), that when it comes to sinking beer, I’m an admiral in this league.

Piping myself on board, therefore, which is something I do with aplomb, almost with as much dexterity as when I blow my own trumpet, although the packaging of this brew both worried and attracted me, I was not altogether convinced that Double Chocolate Stout x 2 would partner well with crisps and peanuts. Would it be, do you think, as chocolate as double chocolate could be?

The answer is ‘Yes, it would!’ You can say what you like about this stout, using predictable beer-reviewing words such as ‘notes’, ‘hints’ and ‘tinctures’, but I am willing to swear on a stack of Mother Ts that when I pulled the seal from the can, chocolate, no, double chocolate, enveloped my old olfactories, just as it used to do when I lived in Norwich and regularly parked my car outside the since defunct chocolate factory; Rowntree’s, I think it was.

It was chocolate in the can; chocolate up your nostrils; and with some, as it turned out to be, unnecessary trepidation, it was chocolate in your mouth. And if you were clumsy and spilt it, it would be chocolate down your trousers.

I deduce, like Sherlock Holmes (I’ve got his hat!), that a single version Mother T. would not be as deep as the double version and also less in strength. At 6.9%, Double T. delivers a clout, but its gloves are lined, made of silk and black, so you do not see it coming (a bit like being mugged in Brixton) and when you do eventually feel it, the blow befalls you like a gentle caress (which is not at all a bit like being mugged in Brixton).

The finish is chocolate; the aftertaste ~ you’ve got it! ~ that is chocolate too. The cunning combination of chocolate, beer and alcohol makes for a strongly addictive beverage. “Whatever next!” I hear you cry, “Cigarette-flavoured beer!”

The all-round from start-to-finish taste is inescapably rich, so forget about winning the lottery. And each successive sip pays dividends; it just gets richer as the can goes down. I could drink this anytime, but preferably in winter when the nights are drawing in and the fire is blazing cozily in the hearth, but I would not want to drink it with a bowl of trifle in one hand and a chili sandwich in the other just before going to bed. How you could do this anyway, unless you had a third hand, is a matter for conjecture, preferably undertaken when wearing Sherlock Holmes’ hat whilst sipping upon a glass of imperial stout.

You have to hand it to the Rewort Brewery, when all is said and done, their Double Chocolate Stout is, with due respect for piety, one helluva beautiful beer!

My apologies to Mother T.

BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: Double Mother T.
Brewer: Rewort
Where it is brewed: Sergiev Posad, Russia
Can capacity: 0.5 litre
Strength: 6.9%
Price: It cost me nowt ~ it was a present; average price 210-290 roubles (£1.72-£2.38)
Appearance: Jet black
Aroma: Chocolate on chocolate
Taste: Chocolate
Fizz amplitude: 0
Label/Marketing: Different ~ to say the least
Would you buy it again? Yes, yes and yes

Beer rating

The brewer’s website has this to say about Double Mother T.:
Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anything to say. But here is the website: https://rewort.ru/

Wot other’s say [Comments on Double Mother T. from the internet, unedited]
🤔Unfortunately, no. A very sweet aftertaste that does not hide a dense body. The double is not felt at all. The last similar one that comes to mind was a brulock with condensed milk. But there was a good stout and quite cheerful and recognizable condensed milk. This one is somehow out of place. [Comment: Do you know what he is talking about?]
😲Not bad at all, but there’s a shitload of yeast floating around, that’s a minus, of course. [Comment: There’s a ‘shitload’ of something floating about, and it’s not yeast!]
😑 Dark chocolate with coffee, thick, but has a slight heavy aftertaste, not something you can drink often. [Comment: Often, yes; a lot of, no.]
😂This stout was a lot easier to drink than the image on the can is to look at whilst you are drinking it. [Comment: No comment.]

387 Osobaya Varka beer in Kaliningrad good or not?

Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: 387 Osobaya Varka

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

31 October 2024 ~ 387 Osobaya Varka beer in Kaliningrad good or not?

Have you ever wondered why Baltika Breweries number their beers instead of giving them a name, for example Russian Sausage or Yalkee Palki. I read somewhere that it is a hangback to Soviet times when everything was numbered, ie School No. 26, Bakery No. 38, Factory No. 97, but perhaps the real reason Baltika use a number instead of a name is that it is easier to recall. Also, whenever one asks for one of their numerical brands, they have first to refer to the brewery name. I mean you can hardly ask for a ‘9’, can you, without running the risk of buying a pair of 9-sized slippers, or a packet containing a German negative. Nine, I mean no; when you ask for any Baltika beer with a number instead of a name, you have to append the ‘Baltika’ first, and, from a marketing point of view, this is rather clever.

Disregarding the fact that not many people ask for bottles of beer when they take them off the shelf (No theory is perfect!), Baltika may have smugly thought that they had the numbers game sewn up … and they had, until along came this little beauty: a beer that goes by the name of 365, sorry that’s a phone number of an old flame (Old Flame Bitter! That’s a good name for a beer!) I meant to say 387.

387 Osobaya Varka beer

387 (never start a sentence with a number!). Is it a bus? Is it a car? Is it a plane? No, the answer to the riddle lies, as revealed by Svoe Mnenie Branding Agency’s comment on the website packagingoftheworld.com, that this Russian brew was not named after Tyre Repair Centre No. 387, but because of 387’s vital statistics. According to what I have read, each bottle of 387 contains three types of malt – lager, caramel and burnt; it has taken eight hours to brew; and not less than seven days of natural fermentation. Put it together and what have you got? 387. Now that’s rather clever too, is it not!

More clever is the fact that the figures ‘387’ all but completely overwhelm the label and are produced in a clear, strong, attractive typeface with closed counters, thus ensuring that the beer leaps out at you from the multiplicity of brands seeking attention on any one shelf.

The little image of the Kaluga brewery projected in a contrasting orange colour on the collar label is also a nice, effective visual touch.

Heckler: “’ere mate, did you buy this [beep] beer to look at the label or to drink the [beep]?!”

We’ll have less of that, my good man! I thought we said no liberals?

Beer review links:

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

When I first bought and drank this beer on 12 September 2022, it cost me 79 roubles. The average price today for a 0.45 litre bottle would appear to be around 80 to 84 roubles. Can’t complain about that.

Beer 387 Osobaya Varka, to use its full name, weighs in at 6.8 per cent. For an old Englishman like me who is used to drinking beer at strengths between 4.1 and 4.5, that’s quite a hike, but who is complaining? Live dangerously. It’s safer than walking down many a street in London once the night has mugged the day.

As always (“He’s so [beep] predictable!” It’s that [beep] heckler again!), the assessment of a good beer and, indeed a bad beer, starts with hooter appraisal. Tops away and the smell genie that pops out of the bottle is strong, sweet and barley-like, with jostling hoppy undertones. The aroma is not lost between the bottle and the glass, into which the nectar happily settles to give a good mid-amber colour and a head which is ‘now you see it and now you don’t’.

The head fizzling out faster than a TARDIS escaping from Dover [see episode 28,000 of Dr Woke ‘The Invasion of the Third Worlders’] is as significant to me as paying my TV licence. I don’t want to have to shave every time I drink a beer. I don’t get the taste and high-volume foam connection, if, indeed, there is one.

Here we have a mid-hoppy taste; a malty taste; a little bit of fruity taste; culminating in a taste that owns up to its strength. The first sip loses nothing in the making, and there is a nice balance among the flavours. The finish is a ‘back of the tongue’ gripper, and the aftertaste in no hurry to let you down and scarper.

The beer is moreish, which is good news for the brewers and also for you, providing you weren’t so daft as to only buy one bottle!

Patric McGoohan’s Prisoner said, “I am not a number, I’m a free man!”

Beer 387 is a number. It is not a free beer, but, believe you me, it’s worth every rouble.

“AB InBev Efes is currently the biggest player on the beer market in Russia”
AB InBev Efes

BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: 387 Osobaya Varka
Brewer: AB InBev Efes
Where it is brewed: Russia
Bottle capacity: 0.45 litre
Strength: 6.8%
Price: It cost me 79 roubles (0.63p)
Appearance: Light amber
Aroma: Barley with fruit nuances
Taste: Starts mild-hop bitter; Finishes with a bite
Fizz amplitude: 3/10
Label/Marketing: Unique
Would you buy it again? There’s no reason not to

Beer rating

About the beer: 387 Osobaya Varka:
The brewer’s website has this to say about 387 Osobaya Varka:

A brilliant beer with rich and original flavour. Caramel malt gives a rich colour, whereas brown malt adds a rye bread aftertaste. This light beer is slightly stronger than average, which makes its flavour more complex and pronounced.

Brewer’s website: https://abinbevefes.ru/

Wot other’s say [Comments on 387 Osobaya Varka from the internet, unedited]
😊Excellent beer, for lovers of strong foamy drinks, good quality, easy to drink, no alcohol aftertaste! [Comment: No idea where he got the ‘foamy’ from!]
😊Yes, I have been enjoying this beer for a long time. It goes well with pistachios. It is cold and just right in the heat. Not weak and not strong…
😑 The taste is flat a bit sweet, a bit sour with faint malty finish. Too much carbonation along with alcohol make very bad mouthfeel. Really needs some food pairing. Avoid it.
[Comment: A bit bitty. Avoid bit.]
😊I forget what it tastes like, but I know I enjoyed it!

Bistrampolio Beer in Kaliningrad is it any good?

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 …]

Keptinis (Farmhouse Beer) in Kaliningrad is it good?

Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Keptinis (Farmhouse Beer)

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

6 June 2024 ~ Keptinis (Farmhouse Beer) in Kaliningrad is it good?

“Anyone for tennis?”

Hardly!

“Anyone for Keptinis?”

I should say so!

‘Keptinis’ ~ it doesn’t exactly roll off of the British tongue, does it? How I remember the name of this beer is to think of a sport I don’t like. Problem is there are many ~ football, cricket, rugby, tennis, I have a healthy dislike of them all. But for the sake of recalling the name of a beer, and a very good beer at that, no sacrifice is unjustified.

Thus, I take the silly game in which three rackets are involved, two that are held in hands and the other that coins in money, and, by the simple cross-referencing method, I think of that common earole complaint medically known as tinnitus, but spelling it wrongly ‘tinnitis’, and I allow the tail of the misspelt word to wave in my direction. Then all I have to do, by way of association, is to think of a beer so all consuming that it would save me from anything foolish or rash, like playing or even watching tennis, and ‘kept away from tennis’ thus, with tinnitis in my ear, I say it so fast it becomes ‘Keptenis’, which is as near to Keptinis as dammit and as damn them is to a boat load of migrants steaming into Dover.

An easier, far less linguistically challenging means of bringing this beer to mind is to focus on the label. With its striking green and yellow shapes and the stovepipe hat and long moustache of its mysterious pop art poster man, it really is, to coin a phrase and in the process mix two metaphors (which like mixing race is never advisable), the ultimate dog’s whiskers, and just to please the equality conscious, the absolute cat’s bollocks. Mix your metaphors if you will, but before you go mixing anything else, for heaven’s sake think of the pups.

Beer review links:

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

Keptinis is a mixed-up beer. The moment you flip the Keptinis stopper you are nose to brew with a different species. This is no simple mass-produced, wishy washy paleface lager or bland keg-bitter fizz bomb. What you have is a subtle hybrid. So subtle, you may not know what it is, but it sure as hell smells different!

So, there I am, sniffing away like a kid in a baker’s shop. Although, I never was a kid, as I never was American. And my first reaction to Keptinis is: For what I am about to receive, will it taste like liquefied rye bread?

“Is there any body there?” I ask, like the only one at a lonely guy’s séance.

And remarkably there is. An awful lot of body. Almost too much in fact (and also too much in fiction): a crowded coven of smell apparitions which, in no one order of merit or preference, gives vent to nasal impressions like dried fruit, molten caramel, aromatic scents, spices of the orient and something not dissimilar to chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Whiffed from within the glass, the subtle and complex combination of deep and rich aromas give way to a smell that is more pronounced, more reminiscently rounded. The jury is out on the soft drink kvas, which is, it may surprise you, mildly alcoholic, while at a stonking 5.7% Keptinis commands a virile strength that by any stretch of the wotsit is hardly soft and rarely limp.

The creamy head that flows profusely and lathers up at the top of the glass looking like old-fashioned shaving foam is a sight for proverbial sore eyes, especially eyes up North (It’s looking up at those pigeons that does it. Why are they all wearing head scarves these days?). But it reminds me more of ice cream; Mr Whippy passing his flake. It was all 69 in the ’70s. (That’s ’99’ with a bit knocked off.)

Keptinis (Farmhouse Beer) in Kaliningrad is it good?

The first mouthful revs up your kvas. Talk about turbo-charged! The taste is full-throttle and it comes at you fast, bouncing from taste bud to taste bud, like brown ale on a Friday night down at the working It’s club, and though incipiently and enduringly dry, both the finish and the aftertaste possess a hitherto secret hint of a not unlikeable sweetness.

The contrast is right-on punchy and funky. To give it a visual translation, a kind of non-binary gender-neutral pole-vaulting limbo dancer strutting her stuff on a pinball table. Please, if you must indulge you fantasies, Keptinis them to yourself!

Some beers are disappointing. They flirt with you in the early evening yet fold before the evenings through, after parting with your money. You might just as well have sat and drank tea whilst watching some tripe on the BBC (It rhymes!) Is this something else you shouldn’t have paid for? A lie, lie, lie, lie, lie-sense. Look out, you’re being investigated! Will you be in next Thursday? You bet your wife I will, but possibly not for the rest of the week! (Sorry, that’s an ‘in’ joke.)

Of all the things on God’s great Earth that are not worth the salt of being kept in by, the BBC is top of the pops. They forgot to investigate Jimmy. But even without a TV licence, I would do everything in my power not to be kept in by a Liebour party political broadcast, or by something equally appalling and unequivocally just as implausible, which rules in coronavirus. And I never have, at least to my knowledge, been kept in by the rogue desire to watch a game of tennis. I would rather stand outside in the street and laugh at cyclists in Lycra shorts. Yet, to be keptin by Keptinis, now that is a horse of a different colour. We won’t divulge which colour (clue, it’s nothing to do with Persil) or we may be coerced into ruining our trousers, along with our integrity, by doing something really stupid like taking a virtue signalling knee. Ho! Ho! Ha! Ha! He! He!

Keptinis (Farmhouse Beer) in Kaliningrad bottle lable

Thankfully, Keptinis is 100% hysteria free: a ‘no one size fits all’ beer that bucks (Did I get that right?) the stereotyping straightjacket. It is less insane than more well-balanced, and though it does resemble kvas, in unassuming and subtle ways, especially if you smoke, has flavours hidden deep within arranged in such cunning and clever ways that the taste bouquet only glitters (all that glitters is not Gary) by slow and teasing degrees, which is all to the ‘so say all of us’, hooray! ~ for Keptinis, it is telling us, is not a one-glass beer and that in order to fully appreciate the deluxe brew it surely is, you have to finish the bottle. I suppose it is what is colloquially known as a drink that is rather morish.

They say, and they are always saying, and I suppose they always will, that the saying about the ‘good thing’ of which, it is said, ‘you can have too much’, will, if you say it often enough, get in the way of the very thing that you cannot get enough of. But shucks (and a word that rhymes with shucks), what the hell do they know!

“Anyone for Keptinis?”

Everyone, I should think.

Disclaimer: Keptinis bears no resemblance to cyclists living or dead or to anyone else not as daft as cyclists who nevertheless would not be seen dead in a pair of Lycra shorts? (sponsored by the Save Me from Being a Sheep Society and the Campaign for Corduroy Trousers in association with Bicycle Clips)

BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: Keptinis (or is that ‘Keptenis’?)
Brewer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai
Where it is brewed: Lithuania
Bottle capacity: 1litre
Strength: 5.7%
Price: It cost me about 230 roubles in 2021. More recently in Kaliningrad, it cost me about 399 roubles/£3.44
Appearance: Dark
Aroma: Not unlike kvass
Taste: Predominantly caramel but with other things going on
Fizz amplitude: 3/10
Label/Marketing: Pop Art
Would you buy it again? Faster than I would buy the Labour party’s policies

Beer rating

About the beer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai | Keptinis

Keptinis is categorised as a ‘Farmhouse Beer’, a rare beer, difficult to brew, native to Lithuania. It is called ‘farmhouse’ for the very good reason that it was traditionally brewed by farmers. Rumour has it that as the special kind of malt that was needed for the brewing process was cost and distance prohibitive, the crafty farmers would create a mash and then bake it at high temperatures in order to produce the distinctive caramel taste for which it is renowned.

The brewers, Aukštaitijos Bravorai, refer to it as an ‘Oven Unfiltered Beer’ and describe its unique personage thus: “This beer stands out because it uses not only caramel and Pilsner malts, but bravura roasted malts, which give this beer a mild bitterness and aroma. Beer after fermentation and maturation has a frozen taste and a dark color.”https://www.aukstaitijosbravorai.lt/

Wot other’s say [Comments on Keptinis
(Farmhouse Beer) from the internet, unedited]
😑Taste is close to aroma, but with harsh yeasty note.
[Comment: Yeasty note, yes; harsh, no]

😊A very rare farmhouse style
[Comment: Wellies and all the rest of it?]

🤔Initial malty flavours soon got tired, it really needs some hop bite to balance it out
[Comment: Your application for tightrope walker has not been successful]

😊 Kvassy, super bready, yeasty and bit funky, bit caramelly sweet and quite bitter
[Comment: Yesy, very goody, welly saidy]

🙂Strong, baked caramel flavour, smooth mouthfeel, interesting sweet notes
[Comment: Orchestrally correct]

Now see this …
Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro in the House of Soviets

Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro with a Heart of Gold

It’s a venue which immortalises the House of Soviets, serves good beer, hosts music evenings and likes you, the customer.

13 April 2024 ~ Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro in the House of Soviets

Do you believe in coincidences? In my most recent post I wrote about the gradual disappearance of Kaliningrad’s most infamous and controversial landmark, the House of Soviets. Less than a week later, I find myself in a subterranean bar dedicated to that very building.

Bar Sovetov is located in what once was, during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the residential quarter of choice for Königsberg’s affluent citizens.

On foot, it is something of a trek from the city centre to this still sought-after district, but it is one I made on numerous occasions in the days when a bar, long since gone, the enigmatically named Twelve Chairs, exercised a consistent influence and justified the effort.

Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad

Whilst in the character of its rooms, Bar Sovetov does not possess the intricacy or the old-world charm that gave Twelve Chairs its je ne sais quoi, it is no less thought-provoking in the nature of its decoration and appurtenances of thematic quirk.

The two-roomed bar, with its truncated corridor leading to the lavs, is very much a pop art haven. Victor Ryabinin, former artist and local historian, would have adored it! Symbolism abounds: ‘Look Out!’ the slogan reads. ‘Big Brother is Watching you!’ You see it above the full-sized wall mirror in which you are watching yourself.

A white face mask framed between two suspended lamps exudes from the wall. Wearing a baseball cap in such a way that it partly conceals its features, it holds to its lips an admonitory finger attached to a long white arm. As with the face above it, the arm emerges from solid brickwork as it would through the fold of a curtain. Both face and arm are whimsical, especially in the matter of their relative dislocation, but irony and surrealism are the uniting forces that bring them together.

These are just two of many examples of Bar Sovetov’s camp milieu. Wherever you look, be it high or low, another element of the quaint and fanciful leaps out to greet and surprise you.

With the obvious exception of Aleks Smirnov’s Badger Club, lovers of the out-of-the-ordinary will be hard pushed to find even among Kaliningrad’s most unconventional watering holes anything that surpasses Bar Sovetov’s quaint burlesque. But for all that it camps it up, the nostalgia has a genuine ring; it springs from a source of real affection. And the humour the props elicit, be it aimed at you and me or tailored to the refined perception of the discerning intellectual, leaves plenty of form intact for the inquisitive mind of the history buff.

The genesis, erection, completion and the long-standing but idle years of the House of Soviets’ occupation are captured step by step in a series of timelined photographs. The images of the building in its promising phase of construction, with cranes on either side, are particularly poignant memories, given that in its obliteration almost identical cranes in almost identical places stand either side of the shrinking structure.

On the opposite side of actuality, a wall in the bar’s first room is a bold painted visual replica, close up and in your face, of the House of Soviet’s exterior. The effect is profoundly Gotham City, gaudy, haunting, claustrophobic but seminally cartoon, a perfect piece of ‘dark deco’ kitsch. Further urbanisation occurs not in the question itself, which is off the wall whilst on the wall, but in the way it is daubed across the wall, which reflects the mind of graffiti man stretched to its utmost limit: “Who,” it asks, “killed the House of Soviets?” If we didn’t laugh, we’d cry.

More real photos of the fated hulk that over its 53-year existence dominated Kaliningrad’s skyline, exciting in its awesome prospect, ambivalent and contentious in what it actually stood for and why it stood for so long, can be found in the bar’s back room.

Mick Hart and Inara at Bar Sovetov in Kaliningrad

It is here that the structure’s rightful place in the socio-political era into which it was given a sort of life or maybe a life of sorts is given historical context. Framed copies of Soviet art, amusing, powerful and all iconic, visually break up the hard brick-wall to which they are attached, whilst in one corner of the room a little shrine pays tribute to the final days of Sovietism.

There, upon a shelf, rubbing shoulders with the printed word and a quaint assortment of nick-nacks, sits a large portrait photograph of if not the architect of perestroika then the man who is widely considered to be its chief executive officer, former General Secretary Gorbachev, twinned in the opposite corner with a replica set of traffic lights, which, for some exotic reason or perhaps no reason at all beyond their anomalous presence and illuminative oddity, cast a lurid reddish glow across the whitewashed brickwork.

The seats in this comic-strip memory, when not authentic 70s’ vintage, are made from wooden pallets, painted to look distressed, put together as benches and kindly equipped with padded seats. However, recalling the slatted wood benches with which Kaliningrad’s trains were furnished twenty-three years ago, such convenient cushioned luxury may be but the useful product of indulgent historical revisionism. Whilst the past is unrelenting in its prescribed but often unforgiving and impractical perpetuity, concessions ought to be made, don’t you think, to our poor post-Soviet posteriors. Historical accuracy has its virtues, but is it worth corns and blisters?

Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad

The bar itself, that is the thing on which when you buy your beer it temporarily rests on top and the area to the rear of it, is a content-managed zone, where normal things normally sold behind bars share more than their fair share of shelving space with the weird, the wild and the whimsically whacky. Note the hollow concrete blocks shown in the photo below that have been used to comprise the wall of the bar. Is that or is it not a passing nod to the House of Soviets?

A conforming principle of all such bars, that is to say craft-beer bars, is that the beer selection is written in chalk on good old-fashioned blackboards. What is it, I ask myself, and I suppose you ask yourself too, about this rudimentary practice that makes it so applicable, so pleasingly, conventionally and fundamentally right and so well received in its prime objective, which is to call to our eager attention the dispensation of quality brews? When you’ve found the answer to that one, you might go on to answer the question ‘Who killed the House of Soviets?’ I have a hunch that in both cases we will discover the hand of Old Father Time.

From the six or so beers on offer, I ordered myself a ‘Milk of …?’ Er, a ‘Milk of …?’ What was the name of that beer? Ah yes, now I remember, I bought myself a ‘Milk of Amnesia’. How could you not drink a beer like that, with a name so unforgettable?

In summing up the Bar Sovetov experience, the beer is good. The atmosphere is atmospheric. The people who run the bar are real; in other words, they are genuinely friendly and they are also good at what they do. They effortlessly embody and earnestly convey the qualities prerequisite for fulfilling the role they have given themselves, that of convivial mine host, in an age when many are either not up to it or simply not fit for purpose.

Those who earn their living in the hospitality trade at customer-facing level, would do well to bookmark this truth, that the bar or pub in which they perform is as much a stage as any other and their customers are their audience. Once the curtain goes up, if you cannot manage authenticity, you must put yourself out there, put on a smile and remember that it’s show time! If the act is one the punters like or at least is one that they can believe in, and the beer is good and well kept, they’ll keep on coming back. Loyalty is everything, and that applies to the service industry as it does to everything else, and I cannot think of a better bar more deserving of it than Sovetov.

The main thing:

Bar Sovetov
Prospekt Mira, 118 ground floor, Central District, Kaliningrad, 236022

Link to street map: https://2gis.ru/kaliningrad/firm/70000001082036462

Tel: +7 921 616 36 26
Telegram: https://t.me/barsovetov
VK: https://vk.com/barsovetov

Opening times:
Mon: Closed
Tues to Thurs: 4pm to 12 midnight
Fri, Sat & Sun: 4pm to 2am

Kanapinis Dark Beer in Kaliningrad How Good is It?

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.

Kanapinis Dark Lithuanian beer — **Kanapinis Dark, easier to drink than to say!**

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!]

Yeltsin Bar: The Best Craft Beers in Kaliningrad

Basically one of the best beer bars in Kaliningrad

28 December 2023 ~ Yeltsin Bar: The Best Craft Beers in Kaliningrad

There’s an awful lot written about Kaliningrad’s number one specialist craft ale bar, Yeltsin, named after Russia’s first post-Cold War president. Most of it is good; and much of it correct.

The essential ingredients of Yeltsin’s success are a wide range of tap and craft bottled beers from around the world, no frills food and a basic, industrialised look and atmosphere. With its juke box, table football and predominantly young clientele, it is the closest thing in Kaliningrad to a UK student bar that you would not expect to find in any Russian city ~ except, perhaps, Kaliningrad.

Yeltsin Bar

The Yeltsin sits at the end of a big solid block of a building on a fairly busy road junction about five minutes walk from Victory Square, Kaliningrad’s city centre.

You’ll wonder what it is when you first see it, as the name Yeltsin is all there is, cut solidly into a bronzed metal sheet attached to the outer wall. It is an effective sign prompting further investigation and one which pre-empts the Yeltsin design and ethos.

To get to the Yeltsin, one must leave the pavement and descend by a flight of concrete steps. A small beer garden, or more accurately beer courtyard, with a gravelled surface and some rudimentary seating precedes the entrance, and preceding communism, and to a limited extent surviving it, is a fine example of the Russian tradition of wall carpeting, albeit on Yeltsin’s outside wall as opposed to the usual practice, which is to hang the carpet on an interior wall for insulation and decoration.

This wall feature, as quirky as it is, pans into virtual insignificance in comparison to the voluminous blackboard, which, stretching from head height to the point where wall meets ceiling, contains an inventory of beers that ranks as truly awesome.

Beer rotation is ongoing, and with each outgoing and incoming beer, the board requires amendment. Up and down the step ladder demands good co-ordination and an admirable head for heights. One can only suppose that the bar staff either refrain from imbibing or have undergone rigorous training in the art of balanced consumption or balance whilst consuming.

Board-Chalker wanted; must have a good head for heights and proven expertise in the techniques, mechanics and dynamics of staying on a stepladder.

The Yeltsin Bar in Kaliningrad

As I wrote in a former post, the Yeltsin is an honest to goodness no frills bar. It is not ‘back to basic’, it is basic. No carpets (apart from the one outside) and no deluxe or chintzy wallpaper. It’s got hard seats, high stools, plain tables, industrial-style hanging ceiling lamps, a 1970’s style football game, a good old-fashioned juke box and an awful lot of atmosphere. It is not a soft-seat comfort place. It’s a place to hang out and drink beer. In fact, it is simply just a great place, with an easy-drinking atmosphere. What more could one possibly want?

Mick Hart Juke Box Yeltsin Bar Kaliningrad

Well, now, the proprietors of the Yeltsin obviously anticipated your answer to that question, and the answer they came up with was the more you want is street cred. And how they have achieved that is to turn the antechamber leading to the toilets and the toilets themselves into municipal halls of graffiti. The result to more conservative-leanings may be a trifle downtown urban for positive acclamation, but for me personally it seals the envelope on the Yeltsin statement of beer and basic.

The thing about the Yeltsin is that it’s a good thing, where less than more really works and where all the additional quirky bits feed into the central premise, which is that young and laid-back beer drinkers only need a glass for their beer, a table on which to place their glasses and stools on which to park their arses, anything else is superfluous.

In the Yeltsin’s case this superfluous anything just might be the huge wall-sized TV screen, which on my most recent visit to the bar was showing a fixed, that is stationery, video-camera image of a busy traffic underpass somewhere in Bangkok (How thrillingly arty fart is that!).

I cast a glance across it and then returned to the beer.

They sell beer in Kaliningrad

Sir Francis Drake pub
True Bar
Dreadnought Pub
London Pub
4 Great Kaliningrad Bars

The main thing:

Bar Yeltsin
Ulitsa Garazhnaya, 2-2а, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, 236001

Tel: 8 (401) 276-64-20

Opening times:
Thurs & Fri: 4.30pm to 12 midnight
Sat & Sun: 2pm to 12 midnight
Mon 4.20pm to 12am

Kanapinis (Cannabis) Beer in Kaliningrad is it good?

Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Kanapinis

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

20 November 2023 ~ Kanapinis (Cannabis) Beer in Kaliningrad is it good?

Kanapinis: This is one of those beers which if you are English and linguistically challenged will be difficult to get your mouth around. Let’s just say by this I mean canapés, and say no more about it.

Whilst Kanapinis’ cannabis-hemp connection cannot fail amongst certain circles to attract (not that I am suggesting foul play by advertising), this beer has three things going for it before you even think of whapping it down your neck. For starters, it’s got bottle, and the bottle is made of glass. It also has a resealable Quillfeldt stopper (as featured in my previous post Butauty) and a label that could take first prize at any pagan festival.

“Plastic coat and plastic hat, and you think you know where it’s at,” sang Frank Zappa. Poor old plastic, destined to travel through life second class. But let’s be Frank about it, Frank, ‘better than glass my arse’, no plastic isn’t and never will be. You certainly got that right! Best beer is best drunk from glass glasses and out of bottles made of glass. Tins are also crap.

The Quillfeldt stopper is what it is: one of those simple but oh so very practical inventions that looks as good as it gets and couldn’t really get much better even if it wanted to. Glass beer bottles in a litre size complete with Quillfeldt stoppers make the urge to save the bottles virtually irresistible. It’s a great way (if you are short of ways) of cluttering up your house. Note: These bottles will come in handy even if you never use them.

Beer review links:

[Butauty]
[Kanapinis (Dark)]

The olfactory clues as to the nature and taste composition of Kanapinis do not do the beer half as much justice as they ought. Not that from the bottle the aroma of the contents can be said to be in anyway dour or as dull as dishwater (are we talking Baltika 3?) or by any stretch of the connoisseur’s thirsty, impatient imagination unpleasant, indeed quite the contrary, the nostrils positively swoon at the subtle shades of bright and smoky, the happy hoppy, the secret scents and the affably aromatic, but subtle is the word and complex is the next one. We’ll get to that in a minute.

In the glass, the decanted beer assumes a smoky amber appearance and comes with a big creamy head. Once poured and given room to breathe, the initial aroma transfigures itself, becoming progressively less like barley and more like a fragrant perfume, not Brute or High Karate or any of that flared-trousers stuff but an exclusively minted, quality Versace.

The exact composition as detected by the nose remains elusive, but drinking is not about sniffing. If it was, the health-conscious caveat added to beer-bottle labels by seemingly indulgent, public-spirited brewers would hardly exhort their customers to play the game and ‘drink sensibly’, as the doing of such a curious thing would have obvious negative impacts on brewery profits. No, the label would instead advise you to sniff the beer with care.

But let’s be done at once with matters of the nose and get down to the business of carefree drinking!

Kanapinis (Cannabis) Beer in Kaliningrad

First, let me assure you that the Kanapinis’ head sits there proudly where it is poured at the top of the glass. It does not wassail away like someone who has vowed that they will love you for eternity but as soon as your back is turned they’ve gone. In other words, the Kanapinis’ head has a certain respectful staying power. It does not go just like that, no matter how much you fool yourself that you would rather expect it to do so.

As you drink this beer, the loyal head clings firmly to the glass, like that special someone you should have clung to in the days before you realised that you were anything else but Love’s Young Dream. But these things invariably happen, and in the world of beery beverages we call this phenomenon not a bitch but by her name, which is lacing.

Kanapinis (Cannabis) Beer in Kaliningrad

As the brew goes down, without unnecessary recourse to rude expressions such as brewer’s droop, it is the fruity innuendos, saucy herbal asides and various suggestive digestive delights that service your longing palate.

The experience is an holistic one: a blend of soft and easy, a tincture of this and that. It’s that mouthwash you almost bought from Aldi but then thought better of it, or that wine you were made to taste by a bunch of pretentious farts, who wouldn’t know the difference between Schrader Cellars Double Diamond Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon and a glass of Andrews Liver Salts (Would that be ‘Andrews’ as in ‘Eamon?’). ‘Spit it out! I should cocoa ~ not!’

Once Kanapinis has gone, it hasn’t. Lacing still clings to your glass, and beyond the climactic finish, which is enough to make your toes curl, the aromatic aftermath is as sweet as the milf next door.

One pint of Kanapinis is nearly never enough. It’s wildly better than sex, with no refractory period. And you never have to worry about it living up to your expectations because, just like playing solitaire, you can cheat as much as you like.

Kanapinis (Cannabis) Beer in Kaliningrad

You’ve got to hand it to the brewers, whether they like it or not, Kanapinis is a babe of a beer. A double-page spread in a paunchy world where beers build better bodies, and you don’t have to switch the light off in order to enjoy it. A word of warning, however, both to the sceptical and the uninitiated who are apt to read the wrong kinds of things and believe what they read is gospel: watch out for those beer reviews that should be taken with a pinch of salt or a glass of Eamon Andrews. Downright obscene it would be, if on consummating Kanapinis, you complained about her virtues and the value you never got for your money. This is not a beer to take home to your mother, but you have to admit its got style.

Kanapinis is habit-forming, but at least it is a natural one. If you don’t come back for more, then there must be something wrong with you. Please to remember the age-old motto, not coming back for more often offends the Lady. I think the someone who coined this phrase was a fan of Margaret Thatcher?

BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: Kanapinis
Brewer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai
Where it is brewed: Lithuania
Bottle capacity: 1litre
Strength: 5.1%
Price: It cost me about 288 roubles (£2.62)
Appearance: Hazy-daisy amber
Aroma: Beer bitter with subtle aromatic hints
Taste: An encyclopaedic experience
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: You wouldn’t want him looking over your shoulder
Would you buy it again? Just try and stop me, pal!!

Beer rating

About the brewery and the beer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai | Kanapinis
The brewer’s website has this to say about Kanapinis light:

“Cannabis, Unfiltered light beer: Beer is brewed according to the classic brewing technology. Natural raw materials, open fermentation and long and careful aging give this beer a mild frozen taste. The barley malt in its composition gives the beer a light amber colour.”

And this to say about their range of beers:

“Each beer recipe is exclusive, with a real story and an authentic composition. The bravors of Aukštaitija produce beer, which dates back to the 1750s. The recipe for one of the brewed beers came from Germany back in the last century, which today is included in the Culinary Heritage Foundation.”

Comment: I would venture to suggest that to look for a better way of enjoying history other than by quaffing it in the form of an authentic, tested-by-time, celebrated historic brew would be a completely pointless object.

Brewer’s website: aukstaitijosbravorai.lt

Wot other’s say [Comments on Kanapinis (Cannabis) beer from the internet, unedited]
😑Hardly tangy, spicy in taste…but overall rather bland
[Comment: This bloke obviously has taste-bud problems.]

😐Slightly sweet, reminiscent of honey, and very drinkable. It could just be a little spicier
[Comment: OK, so make with the chili sauce!]

😁Stonkingly good beer!
[Comment: Alright, I admit, it was me who said that.]

😐Very unusual beer, smells of honey, but not too sweet, very drinkable, delicious! The only drawback is a bit too little carbonation*. Can I drink more of this?
[Comment: Well, if you can’t, pass me the bottle!]

*He needs to add a spoonful of Andrews Sisters

Butauty Beer in Kaliningrad How Good is It?

Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Butauty

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

6 November 2023 ~ Butauty Beer in Kaliningrad How Good is It?

Quillfeldt! No, it’s not the name of a beer and neither is it a term of abuse. It is in fact the name of a gentleman, Charles de Quillfeldt, to be precise, the inventor of the ‘flip top’ or ‘lightening toggle’ bottle stopper, whose name is eponymous with his marvellous creation.

Qillfeldt’s bottle closure system consists of a hinged wire frame attached to a stopper which, being harnessed to the bottle neck, allows it to be removed and replaced with ease and relative swiftness. (Just the job in a thirst emergency.) Since the stopper is attached to the bottle, it is impossible to misplace it, enabling the bottle to be opened and closed at will, a thoughtful contraption and that’s a fact, although in my experience a quality bottled beer once opened will never have need to be sealed again.

Butauty Beer in Kaliningrad

Butauty beer, by Lithuanian brewers Vilniaus alus, has such a top, or should I say had, as recent information discloses, without revealing why, that production of this beer has ceased. That being noted, however, as recently as last week I discovered a shelf full of Butauty in one of Kaliningrad’s Victoria supermarkets, so either someone is telling porkies, or the beer displayed is remnant stock.

Nevertheless, as I drank it, liked it and also made notes about it back in 2022, I shall now proceed to review it, even if it has become just an affectionate bittersweet memory.

It isn’t, not bittersweet that is. It has a slightly bitter twang, but overlaying that a predominantly burnt, smoky, caramel flavour, slightly aromatic, one might even venture to say subtly aromatic, with a deep and generous peaty aroma.

When my Quillfeldt flew off, a bit like my toupee did last summer, as I was racing along in an open-topped car, the aroma genie popped out as if it was old Jack from his box, and started into shouting up my nostrils, “Get a load of this! It’s deep and richly peaty!”

And isn’t it just the truth.

Butauty Beer in Kaliningrad

In the bottle, the beer looks as black as your hat, or most parts of South London, but once you’ve outed it into your glass, it could be any one or other of fifty shades of grey.

Butauty gives good head, the sort of rich, frothing, foaming head that they used to like up North in England before the Daleks invaded the area and everything went south ~ although it didn’t help them any. But like a lot of endangered English traditions, the head shows little resolve. It fizzles, farts and splutters and by the time you’ve come back with your crisps, it’s as shockingly gone as a case of white flight.

I, personally and in particular, have never cared much for a big creamy head. As far as I am concerned, beer can be as flat as a triple ‘A’, as long as it retains its zest and unique flavour. There’s nothing much flat that I can’t handle, although I don’t care much for the Fens. Mind you, with its rich peaty smell and Fen-like hue, Butauty beer, at 5.5%, has an earthiness about it that would fable well in the Cambridgeshire Badlands, ‘Ay up, and Jip Oh!’, except, of course, it hails ~ or did hail ~ from Lithuanian brewers, Vilniaus alas ~ sorry Vilniaus alus (with a four-letter word like ‘alus’, it could have been far worse!).

Among Butauty’s internet reviews, many are rather scathing. I just don’t get it (You’re not the only one! Have you any suggestions?). And, if what is written is not a black lie, and the beer is no longer produced, no one will be getting it.

I, for one, and some others I imagine, can honestly say that I like this beer. It smells like good beer should smell and is right tasty, I’ll tell you that!

Should the rumour of its demise be credible, it will indeed be a sorry day for beer connoisseurs wherever they are, and yet we must take heart, for there is consolation in everything: as Bogart once famously said, “We’ll always have Quillfeldt.”

BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: Butauty
Brewer: Vilniaus alus
Where it is brewed: Vilnius, Lithuania
Bottle capacity: 1litre
Strength: 5.5%
Price: It cost me about 280 roubles [in 2022] [Note: recent supermarket price is 490 roubles, £4.30]
Appearance: Dark
Aroma: Caramel and peat
Taste: Complex taste of all things dark and beautiful
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: Olde Worlde Parchment
Would you buy it again? If they ever start producing it again, anytime

BEER RATING:

About the brewery: Vilniaus alus
Vilniaus alus’s claim to fame is that it is the only brewery of beer and natural drinks in Vilnius. The brewery is proud to assert that no chemical additives are used in their beers, guaranteeing quality products wholesome in natural ingredients. Both bottled and draft beers are produced, and the company exports to Europe and to the USA.
Vilniaus alus

Wot other’s say [Comments on Butauty from the internet, unedited]
😊Caramel bitterness, like a pleasant surprise, Doesn’t taste bitter, but pleases with its taste, like a little whim

😒Butter, caramel, diacetyl. Powdery mouthfeel. Nutty with a bitter note. But destroyed by rancid butter.

🙂 Good chocolate stout

😮Lithuanian Shit! [I say! Steady on!]

The right connections
Cultura Kaliningrad ~ a world-wide beer bonanza
Variety of beer in Kaliningrad