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Zhigulevskoye Beer Kaliningrad Russia

**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.

Gold Mine Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Article 4: Gold Mine Beer

Published: 24 July 2020

The bottled beer that I am reviewing today goes by the very enticing name of Gold Mine. As with all beers in this series of reviews, they are widely available throughout Kaliningrad, Russia, from most supermarkets, and, as with all of the beers that I intend to review here, they have been selected on an ad-hoc basis. Why did I choose Gold Mine? Because I liked the name and the label.

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

Labelling and product presentation plays a crucial role in leveraging purchasing decisions at every level, but is particularly important when it comes to impulse purchasing an unknown, untried and untested brand of, in this case, beer without recommendation or information to act as a guide.

The seductability value of a bottled beer’s label design is especially important if you are operating on a quick-decision buy-it-now basis. Nowhere is this more true if you are buying a beer that is produced in a country that is not your home country, where you may have no knowledge of, or only an elementary grasp of, the written language of that country. In this case, your purchasing decision will almost certainly be made according to visual appeal. In my case, as my command of the Russian language is limited, as is the time that we have on this Earth, making a purchasing decision from what is written on the bottle would leave me little time to drink it before its sell by date expired. So, for me here in Russia, labelling, as well as beer strength (since even I can read the percentage on the bottle), are the two criteria that I use before parting with my rubles.

Marketing wise, Gold Mine is great. The label has a retro feel to it, which is bound to be attractive to an old vintage and antique dealer like myself who has never moved out of the past. The label, which is unsurprisingly gold coloured, has an American bias. The words Gold Mine Beer (in English) romp brassily across the front of a dark-blue and gold-rimmed shield, reminiscent of a 1960s’ US police officer’s badge. The shield is surmounted by a New York City skyscape, a group of sketched skyscrapers and big city office blocks, one bearing the word ‘Urban’ written sideways and travelling vertically and another, in bold, ‘Light’. The US city design continues as a series of abstract shapes and line-drawn tower blocks that fade in and out of the golden background. The collar label above wears a complementary image, denoting skyscraper and suspension bridge together with the words ‘100% Light Beer’ and ‘fresh’, ‘premium’. What does all this mean? Well, nothing much, but the words are in different weights and scripts and as my Russian wife would say, when she gets her words in a mucking fuddle, it good looks.

We do not buy beer to look at the label, do we? That is about as daft as suggesting that we buy anything with alcohol in it to drink sensibly, because if we wanted to do that we would confine ourselves to mineral water, but, at the risk of repeating myself and sounding vaguely sexist, when it comes to trying something new appearance is everything and a bit more besides.

Leering at it in the supermarket cooler it occurred to me that if the product delivered as much as the labelling, it would be a darn good drink.

So, I bought it. Took it home. Retired with it to my gentleman’s drinking room, Mick’s Place, secreted in the attic, and plumbed the depths.

Gold Mine Beer in Kaliningrad

Verdict: Gold Mine Beer does have a colour that lives up to its name. It is a light, golden, lager beer. I have seen it described as crisp, but I would disagree with that: it has a soft, mellow taste with a standard, traditional lager finish. There is also a faint after taste, but not exciting enough for me to want to write home about it. Having said that, the texture is quite full bodied. It suits my palate in that its carbonation soon gives out, so it does not fizz up one’s nose like a glass of Andrew’s Liver Salts (sorry for mentioning the liver in a beer review).

Would I drink it again?

Yes. A 1.35 litre bottle retails in our local store for about 90 rubles (just over a quid). It is not the bees’ knees of beers but then neither is it the roadman’s wellingtons. It is drinkable and more. Real ale connoisseurs may well have a problem with it, but I suspect seasoned lager drinkers used to finding less ‘gold in them thar pilsners’ than they would like, might reasonably discover when prospecting this brand that it was good enough to bottle it.

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Gold Mine Beer
Brewer: World Beers
Where it is brewed: California, USA
Bottle capacity: 1.35 litres
Strength: 4.5%
Price: It cost me about 90 rubles (98 pence)
Appearance: You won’t believe it ~ Gold
Aroma: Corny
Taste: Soft, traditional, light-coloured lager tang with one or two hops struggling to the surface
Fizz amplitude: 6/10
Label/Marketing: As good as, if not better than, gold
Would you buy it again? Yes. But I wouldn’t go looking for it

Cedar Wood Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Article 3: Cedar Wood beer

Published: 20 July 2020

Would you Adam and Eve it, the name of this beer is Wood? Well, to be more precise Cedar Wood. And no, I am sorry to disappoint you, I am not about to make comparisons between the smell and taste of this ‘Russian-brewed’ beer and a cheap, tacky aftershave of the same name that was rife in the UK back in the 1970s, if only because Cedar Wood aftershave did stink strongly of cedar wood (whatever that smells like) and may have tasted like it too, although, contrary to legend, I never did drink it.

Previous articles in this series:
Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad
Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

I bought this beer not for its strength, which comes in at a not-to-be-sniffed-at 4.8% (not considered to be a strong beer in this part of the world), but on the strength of its label, which at first site is its selling point and some Wood say its last.

The label shows three men, two sitting on top of a log and one standing nearby, which, one would logically (pun intended [or was it!]) conclude, is from the eponymous tree genus, cedar, as it would not make sense if it was something else. The three men are, supposedly, jolly Siberian peasants ~ the bottle states that the beer is brewed in Siberia, although I have since found out that it isn’t. One man has a foaming ‘pint’ in his hand, which must be any other beer but Wood, as although Wood does have a big head on it, it is rather wishy-washy. A second man has his chopper over his shoulder. Yet another boast, I suspect, that Wood cannot live up to. And I am not quite sure what the third man has in his hand or where his hand is. Ahhh, it appears to be in his pocket, possibly holding his wallet intact because he has no intention to pay for such a beer as this. Come to think of it, he does look a bit like my brother …

Cedar Wood Beer in Kaliningrad

That the marketing profile has good, old-fashioned masculine appeal ~ you can almost smell the pheromones ~ cannot be disputed. This beer is aimed at and drunk by hard-grafting manly men ~ none of your skinny-arsed trousers and nerdy spectacles here! Indeed, when I first saw the label I thought, I bet this comes from Canada, but I quickly remembered that the Canada of my youth and earlier ~ the Canada of fur trappers, mountain men, cattle ranchers, lumberjacks and the good old Canadian Mountie ~ was now, like John Wayne, an anachronism, replaced by new man, woke man, limp-wristed and Guardian-reading, the sort that would make Bob Hope look like Tyson Furry.

I suppose this is why when I took my first sip I won’t say that I was disappointed, as this might suggest all kinds of acceptable things by today’s gender-depleted standards, but it certainly was not what I had expected. Unlike the Mountie I thought it was, it never got its man.

In other words, it was not as manly as the label suggested. It did not have to be infused with the sweat of honest toil and reeking of rancid pipe tobacco, and neither, just because it was called ‘Wood’, did I anticipate that it would make me feel 30 years younger at half-past six in the morning, but a little more oomph Wood have been appreciated.

I am in no way attempting to criticise the alcohol strength, 4.8% is good enough for me; no, the missing ingredient was taste.

Here you have a light, golden-looking beer, with a hoppy taste and straw-like aroma. There is a touch of the aromatics about it, which conforms to the cedar name, and this ingredient loiters happily at the back of your throat after the beer has been quaffed. It is a fizz beer, with plenty of carbonation, but as both taste and aroma lacks clout, and is fairly bland, the effervescence compensates for the rest and does propel what vague distinction there is high up into the back of your hooter, which is by no means novel if, like me, you have the distinction of having belonged to the Andrews Liver Salts generation.

With Wood, you need patience, for you have to wait for the taste to come through, but it eventually does in a very eventual way.

In summary, Wood is a light, golden, traditional lager beer. The aroma and taste are hardly as memorable as the vintage aftershave of the same name, but at 4.8% by volume, it is deceptively strong. I purchased my bottle of Wood, 1.35 litres, for about 137 rubles (£1.50) from our local supermarket.

As standard supermarket retailed fare goes, it was not that bad, and the price speaks for itself. Would I buy Wood again? To answer that question, I will borrow that singularly important loaded word from the long-running Carlsberg advertising campaign ‘probably’, if only to enjoy the Pythonesque label!

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.

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Cedar Wood
Brewer: Baltika-Samara
Where it is brewed: Everywhere but Siberia
Bottle capacity: 1.35 litres
Strength: 4.8%
Price: I got it for 136 rubles (£1.50)
Appearance: Light, traditional lager beer
Aroma: Still working on it
Taste: A bit of this and that ~ hoppy, slightly bitter, tinge of herbs but no cedar
Fizz amplitude: 7/10
Label/Marketing: Michael Palin and the Lumberjack song
Would you buy it again? Probably

Mick Hart drinking beer in Kaliningrad — **MIck Hart secretly drinking ‘Siberian’ beer in Kaliningrad, where no one suspects that he is English**

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Introduction

Published: 30 June 2020 ~ Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

Everybody knows that vodka is Russia’s national tipple, but it may come as surprise to learn that the second favourite is beer. From personal observation, I would say that here in Kaliningrad young people tend to favour beer over vodka, which would explain why the variety and availability of different beer types and brands have mushroomed in pace with the numerous new bars, restaurants and hotels that have opened in recent years.

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

Gone are the days when if you felt like a beer you either went to the billiard hall or stopped off for a jar and a chat with friends at the side of the road. The little yellow two-wheeled tankers that provided this service have since been pensioned off, as far as beer is concerned, but can still be seen today now dispensing another traditional Russian drink of the non-alcoholic variety known as Kvass.

The increase in on-licensed premises since I first came to Kaliningrad in 2000 is nothing short of phenomenal and, coronavirus willing, may it continue to be that way. To service this industry there is not just a greater variety of Russian-brewed beer but also many international imports, both mainstream brands and interesting lesser known products, offering plenty of scope for exploration.

The craft beer bar has also made its debut in Kaliningrad. I believe there are five such outlets, the most popular and well-known being the Yeltsin Bar. These fairly small, but magnificently well-stocked beer bars, are reminiscent of the UK’s micro- or pop-up pubs but offer a substantially greater quantity and variety of beers at any one time sourced from around the world and purveyed on a rotational basis.

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

The brewed-on-the premises concept is also well established, with brew bars producing their own house brands and proudly displaying their brewing equipment for all to see on the premises. A good, large and exciting example of this would be the Pivovar Restaurant Brewery just off Victory Square in the centre of Kaliningrad, where the rows upon rows of deep copper brewing kettles and those mounted monolithically behind the bar are nothing short of magnificent

British ales are obtainable in Kaliningrad, such as Fuller’s ESB and various IPA varieties, most conspicuously in the Sir Francis Drake English-style pub, the first of such bars in Kaliningrad, which was certainly functioning when I first came here in the year 2000. But, as might be expected, the British ales that are served here are the keg export equivalent of their real-ale counterparts. But hey! ~ you did not travel all this way to drink a pint of Charlie Wells, did you?

Bottled British-brewed craft ales are also no stranger to Kaliningrad. You can expect to find both mainstream and more exotic brands in Kaliningrad’s specialist beer shops, and some supermarkets, both small and large, often stock a surprisingly diverse range of British beers.

Imported beer is, not very strangely, more expensive to buy than home-grown varieties, whether bought for consumption in restaurants or bars or as an off-sale from specialist beer shops. The typical price of half a litre of British beer in the Sir Francis Drake, for example, would set you back 250 to 360 rubles, which is between £2.90 and £4.18, whereas a half litre of Russian beer in one of the Britannica bars (a chain of British-themed ale houses along the lines of Wetherspoons) will leave your pocket a lot less stressed at around 130 rubles (£1.51).

Naturally, beer purchased from supermarkets can be obtained at more economical prices. My favourite Kaliningrad bottle beer, Ostmark (strong), which weighs in at a not inconsiderable 6.7% alcohol by volume ~ rather too strong for my normal preference of 4.5% max, but with more taste than most lager beers ~ costs between 160 rubles and 136 rubles for a 1.35 litre bottle, the price differentiation can be explained by the presence of two small supermarkets close to where we live, one of which is cheaper. In the cheaper supermarket, special offers occur on a daily basis, and I have seen good quality beers in 1.35 litre bottles going for less than a quid. Incidentally, this same supermarket does a good discounted range of quality vodkas as well, from around £2.80 for a 75cl bottle.

Another must for the beer connoisseur and further testimony to the take-up of beer in Kaliningrad specifically and Russia overall are the well-patronised specialist beer-dispensing shops. These establishments offer a wide selection of Russian and imported speciality beers on tap, which once purchased are conveniently decanted into screw-topped 2-litre plastic bottles.

Surprisingly, given its relatively small size, one of our local supermarkets incorporates an outlet of this nature. It stocks around 10 different beers on tap as well as some bottled varieties. The beer is good, both in terms of variety and quality, and is also competitively priced, making this venue a particular favourite of my brothers when he visited us last summer.

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

In Russia, beers tend to be grouped into categories determined by their hue: light, red and dark. In restaurants or bars, you will also often be asked whether you want a particular beer to be filtered or unfiltered. Simply translated this means that you have a choice between cosmetic surgery or beer in its natural state.

As the articles which follow deal exclusively with beers that I have been buying at random from our local supermarkets in 1.35l bottles, the light, dark, filtered and unfiltered taxonomy is only relevant insofar as appearance is concerned, and you can only really determine this once the bottle is open and the contents have been poured.

These beers may not be the crème de la crème in the sense that they are supermarket bought, not purchased from craft-beer outlets, but they do have something very important going for them: they have helped to sustain me through the isolating process, and during social distancing have become a much appreciated part of my personal New Normal in the wake of closed bars whilst the dreaded spectre of Coro continues to stalk the land.

😏 Feature image: Mick & Olga Hart enjoying a beer on the terrace at the palatial Residence of the Kings, Kaliningrad, in the pre-coronavirus summer of 2019