Double Mother T. Kaliningrad - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

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.]