Tag Archives: Mick Harts review of beers in Kaliningrad

Cultura Kaliningrad a World-Wide Beer Bonanza!

Cultura Bottle Shop in Kaliningrad

10 August 2023 ~ Cultura Kaliningrad a World-Wide Beer Bonanza!

The beer reviews that I have written to my blog number in the region of twenty five. That I have managed to fit these in between drinking beer is astonishing, but somehow they have taken shape. In these reviews I have dealt exclusively with beers sold through supermarkets, predominantly in PET bottles in regulated volumes of 1.35 to 1.5 litres, but the fact that I have homed in on this category of beer does not mean that during the course of my beer-drinking lifestyle, I have not permitted myself the pleasure of quaffing offerings of a more specialised nature, beers which by their craft or import status are generally considered more exotic and, as a consequence, more expensive.

Thus, in addition to my reviews of the best and the worst of Kaliningrad’s ‘run of the mill’ bottled beer, I give you fair warning that I am now about to embark on the no less difficult appraisal of craft and speciality imported beers.

As in my last series of highly professional and sensible reviews, it is my intention to stick to beers purchased through supermarkets and/or specialist beer-selling outlets, in other words from what we call in England off-sales rather than licensed premises, such as bars, cafes, restaurants and hotels or, to be more precise, beers sold in bottles as distinct from barrel-stored, tap-dispensed beverages.

Whilst supermarkets and smaller shops in Kaliningrad may stock one or two more exotic brands of beers supplementary to their standard fare, such commodities are typically to be found in greater abundance and choice in specialist retail outlets. A number of such establishments abound in Kaliningrad, but one of the best by virtue of its diverse selection and quality has to be Cultura.

Cultura Kaliningrad

Cultura’s pedigree is accredited by discerning beer-buying and drinking afficionados, whose approving comments feature regularly on various beer-tickers’ websites.

Cultura is situated on one of Kaliningrad’s busy city thoroughfares, Prospekt Mira. As with many other shops in Kaliningrad, it is located on the ground floor of a three or four storey block of flats, whose size and scale dwarfs its presence and understates its potential. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the fact that seasoned beer drinkers are like seasoned hunters — they have a nose for their quarry — the shop and its myriad delights could easily be passed by. True, the Russian word for beer (peeva) is large enough not to be missed, but the back-to-basics look, which may or may not be designer inspirited, is a little too convincing when viewed against the backdrop of the tired old flats in which it is framed. However, first impressions can be deceptive, and don’t we drinkers know it, and any misgivings and apprehensions that may be unjustly inferred are swept away immediately once you have wassailed inside.

In fact, once inside Cultura one’s senses positively reel! The shop has an awful lot of beer, an awesome lot of different beers, and even after closing your eyes, opening them again, rubbing them and pinching yourself, the notion that you might have died and gone to beer-shop heaven is delightfully ineffaceable.

Cultura Kaliningrad

I am not much of a traveller, so Cultura is my compensation. Its beers, sourced from around the world, enable me to globe trot at will. I can be in Germany one minute and Belgium the next. I can even be back in Great Britain, no passport or visa required, all that is needed is cash and in the globalist era of touch-card technology even that is not an impediment ~ or so they would have us believe!

Cultura is like a library, and whilst not all drinkers are readers and not all readers are drinkers, who could resist working their way through the legion of beer-bottle labels that line Cultura’s shelves. Volumes and volumes of labels and each label speaking volumes; talk about spoilt for choice! Where on earth does one start?

A good starting point could be strength, country of origin, dark beer or hoppy light, bottle size and cost. Alternatively, you could invite your curiosity to take you where it will, which is more or less the path that I took. As I travelled around the world in my own inimitable way, marvelling at the exhibits, as unique and individual as anything in an art gallery, price became a factor, albeit a not defining one, in the process of selection.

Mick Hart samples Kaliningrad imported beers

Above: Mick Hart in Cultura: one photo was taken during the Plandemic; the other later. Bet you can’t guess which is which?!

Translating roubles into pounds based on the exchange rate on any given day is never easy; performing the calculation as an aid to purchasing beer is analogous to acrobatics, and whilst it may not, and often does not, provide the safety net you hope it will, price variations in Cultura are sufficiently dramatic to make falling back on this methodology an imperfect reassurance.

On my first visit to Cultura at the height of the Plandemic in November 2021, the exchange rate was such that it allowed me to cut some slack, and I was not particularly concerned about paying 350 to 400 roubles for a litre bottle of beer (then about £4.50) even though in those days the average price for a 1.5 litre bottle available from supermarkets was under £1.50. “Treat yourself!” I thought, and so I did.

Come 2023, however, I was less complacent. This was the time when the rouble was billed as the ‘best performing currency in the world’, thanks to the fiscal measures taken to equalise the impact of western sanctions. The resultant disparity in the price and value of craft and imported beers had me effectively sanction myself. Unlike the big sanctions, however, whose efficacy are questionable, my little, private sanctions were not so ill conceived that they would come back later to bite my arse; they were modest in proportion and tenable in their application, working on the kind of budget that the Bank of England can only dream of. Even so, speciality beers, particularly imported ones, have always come with a higher price tag wherever you might be domiciled, and those in Cultura are no exception. I will leave you to decide whether or not you would be prepared to pay £15 or more for a litre bottle of beer.

“Ay up, mother, I think it’s off to the working man’s club!” (Note: Working Men’s Clubs are no longer permissible in British society: (a) because we no longer have a ‘working class’ and Benefit Class does not sound near as 21^st century as politicians would like, and (b) to have a man’s club or a man’s thing of any kind in the UK is impermissible under the ‘Everyone has to be Queer Act’ [source: Winky’s Guide to British Law by N.O. Balls])

That having been said, and I am sorry that it has been, but things do have a habit of popping out (when you least expect them to) [source When I Was Young by Y. Fronts], the price range in Cultura is flexible enough to ease the stays on your wallet without making you walk lop-sided. And once everything is paid for, it all fits snugly in a nice paper bag.

There are red flags and red lights: one is to a bull which the other is to need, and there are green lights that mean Go. Which is why I went to Cultura. No one should court seduction until it becomes a vice, but every once in a while passion needs an outing. Remember the words that your maiden aunt should have listened to but didn’t: ‘a little of what you fancy does you good!’

Cultura has a lot of that little and plenty more besides. You won’t be sorry you went there!

More beer delights in Kaliningrad
The London Pub
Sir Francis Drake
Four great Kaliningrad bars
Dreadnought

The main thing

Cultura Bottle Shop
Prospekt Mira, 46-48, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, 236022
Tel: +7 911 860-78-50

Opening times
Fri & Sat 11am to 1pm
Sun to Thurs 11am to 10pm

Website
https://vk.com/culturabottleshop/

An Art to Brew Beer in Kaliningrad

An art to drinking beer in Kaliningrad

28 April 2023 ~ An Art to Brew Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Article 25: An Art to Brew

I bought this beer for two reasons: one, I liked the label; and two, I liked the dumpy bottle with a carrying handle attached to the top.

In order of attraction, the label appealed to me because it appeared to me to be something to do with steampunk. At the time I hadn’t got my glasses on and at the time I was more interested in getting something into a glass, preferably something called beer, and drinking it.

The steampunk allusion, which was also an illusion, was purely provided by pipework. It could have been a pipedream, after all steampunk is still a relatively young person’s predilection, but even without glasses and in my ardent desire to fill one, I could make out something that was illustrative of line-drawn plumbing, which was good enough for me.

The shape of the bottle with its plastic swing-tilt handle has two strings to its bow: novelty is never dull, and handles are good for carrying things with. So, I picked the bottle up by its handle, paid for it at checkout and out of the shop I went, all steampunked-up and ready to go.

At home, tucked away in my ‘never to grow up’ drinking den, my wife cleared up any pretensions I may have fostered about the nature of the illustrated label and also assisted me in interpreting what I was having trouble with: surely this beer that I had just bought whilst in a steampunking mood and carried home with the help of a novelty handle could really not be called ‘The Art of Brewing Czech Bar’?

Good Heavens! Whatever Next?

That’s easy. Next was getting it out of the bottle, into the glass and drinking it.

At last, it was where it should be. But first the aroma.

The beer had a bitter, hoppy smell, and I liked it.

I put my glasses on and looked at the glass. It was in there, alright, and it was giving me the three ‘Cs’: Crisp, Clear and Clean. It had poured with a big head but, being a modest kind of beer, became less big headed as each second past until effectively self-effacing itself.

The first taste proved to be not as bitter as I thought it would be. You could say that it erred more on the soft and mellow side ~ and that’s exactly what I am saying.

No one that I know of has ever ridiculed themselves by calling me a sweet man, either behind my back or in front of it, and I am not about to make the same mistake with this beer. What was sweet about it was that it was dry, not as old boots but pleasantly dry: it was the Hush Puppies of the 2020s, which is not as daft as you sound, at least not when you marry the concept to its leading attributes, which are, as I have noted, soft and mellow.

Are you familiar with the word ‘lacing’? No? Well, you haven’t read enough typically serious beer reviews, have you! But what the cliché doesn’t know the heart won’t grieve about, so we will have no more nonsense where that is concerned. And who cares anyway, if the foam from the beer sticks to the glass or not?

What is more significant is that the dry initial taste travels successfully through the finish and as for the aftertaste it is continuity all the way.

Let’s hear it from the brewers

“Beer varieties brewed under the Art of Brewing brand have a noble taste. [It is a] Golden lager, brewed according to the classic Czech recipe. [Its] bitter richness and pleasant sharpness in taste is achieved through the use of a special combination of hop varieties during brewing.”
The Brewers

Those nice chaps from the Trehsosensky Brewery are not not to be believed. In fact, having sampled other brews in their stable (What is the strangest place where you have drunk beer?) my verdict is that there is absolutely nothing deceitful, underhand or horrifyingly globalist in what the brewers have to say.

An Art to Brew Beer in Kaliningrad

I’ve read reviews about this beer which, although not exactly scathing, have taken a begrudging stance, implying that it is passable but dull. I do not agree. An Art to Brew Czech Bar stands head and shoulders above mediocrity and, whilst it may never take the crown from beers acknowledged universally to have travelled every road of excellence and made it to illustrious, it has enough going for it in singular taste and quality to nudge it around the bend into the aspirant class. Doubt what you hear? That’s odd, because I am typing this, not talking to you, but now I can tell you straight, you should road test one today!

😀TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: An Art to Brew Czech Bar
Brewer: Trehsosensky Brewery
Where it is brewed: Ulyanovsk, Russia
Bottle capacity: 1.3 litres
Strength: 4.9%
Price: It cost me about 137 roubles (£1.50) [at time of writing!]
Appearance: Golden
Aroma: Bitter and hoppy
Taste: Dry, mellow with a delightful hint of bitterness
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: Intriguing
Would you buy it again? Anytime
Marks out of 10: 8

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

Cesky Medved Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Published: 19 January 2022 ~ Cesky Medved Beer in Kaliningrad

Article 18: Cesky Medved

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

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

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

Cesky Medved Beer in Kaliningrad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a bear-faced lie!!

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

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

Gyvas Kaunas in Kaliningrad

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

Published: 25 September 2021 ~ Gyvas Kaunas in Kaliningrad

Article 15: Gyvas Kaunas

Well, just look at it! I bought this lager in spite of, rather than because of, the appearance of the bottle. It reminded me of someone or something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Could it have been that brassy blonde that I had met in an East London nightclub? Was it something I had seen on an Italian reality TV show? Did someone try to sell it to me once? I vaguely remember his voice, “Oh to be sure, to be sure. ‘Tis the real thing, sure enough. On the memory of my sainted mother would I tell you otherwise …” No? Panto, perhaps? Or something in a joke shop window?

Gyvas Kaunas in Kaliningrad

Gambling all on the forgiving notion that tasteless is not always the red flag that we take it for, I paid my 140 roubles, which isn’t cheap considering that this fairground bottle only holds one litre, and left the shop quite smartishly, as if I’d just purchased the drinks equivalent of a mucky book or had been seen with a TV celebrity.

Once safely indoors I stashed the bottle away behind the potatoes and made a mental note to forget that I had bought it, but come the witching hour, seven o’clock (and, listen you lushes, I do mean seven in the evening!), the hankerings overtook me, and before you could say, “Do you really think that this is a good idea?!”, I had whipped it out and took it upstairs.

Gyvas Kaunas in Kaliningrad

On the coffee table, which also functions as a beer table, the bottle looked distinctly out of place, standing there as it did next to my manly Soviet tankard. I had the uneasy feeling that I was about to open a bottle of fizzy wine and that nothing short of Hinge and Bracket’s tablecloth and Liberace’s candelabra would do the experience justice.

Gee it was Gaudy, with a capital ‘G’.

Never mind. I put on my sunglasses, peeled away at the pink foil wrapper, put the corkscrew back in the drawer and slipped off the top. Now came the moment of truth. I moved slowly towards the neck of the bottle, longingly but apprehensively. The camera, had there been one, began to revolve at 360 degrees, the lighting first went dim and then became suffused. I lowered my nose to the opening. Chanel No 5 or Canal in need of dredging, which one would it be? Eureka, or You Reeka Lot! Downwind of a lav portacabin on a very warm and windy day!

Desist or resist! As I wouldn’t judge a book by its cover, neither would I allow my olfactory senses to be the sole arbitrator in the case of Pong vs Palate.

I poured the liquid into my glass, observing it, of course, with no small degree of suspicion, and then I took the plunge.

Gyvas Kaunas in Kaliningrad

Verdict: fruity.

There was the essence of bitter grapes, tinged with grapefruit, a touch of lemon and a fondle of orange and, thanks to a long-life fizz, a loyal taste that did not immediately let you down and simply walk away.

All things considered, it would be unfair of me if I did not admit that the experience had been worth the 140 roubles that I had paid. And, yes, you may be right. My criticism of the packaging could be due to a lifetime of drinking British ales dispensed from stalwart old-world handpumps. So, was I being too hard?

I would not go so far as to say that it was Casablanca ~ the start of a beautiful relationship ~ more like a one-night stand, but I have put the empty bottle aside, as who knows one day it may come in handy should I ever want to remodel my room to resemble Del Boy’s flat.

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Gyvas Kaunas
Brewer: Kalnapilis
Where it is brewed: Vilnius, Lithuania
Bottle capacity: 1 litre
Strength: 4.6%
Price: It cost me about 140 roubles (£1.41)
Appearance: Pale golden
Aroma: Don’t ask!
Taste: Fruity mix with bitter twangs
Fizz amplitude: 7/10
Label/Marketing: Why?
Would you buy it again? Read the post
Marks out of 10: 4.5

Czech Recipe Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Article 13: Czech Recipe Beer

Published: 26 April 2021

Hitler may have referred to England as a nation of shopkeepers, but back in the day when England was England, before it became what it is today (R.I.P. England), I, and many of my contemporaries, considered England to be not only a nation of beer drinkers, but the nation of beer drinkers. So, it might surprise you to learn that it is in fact Czechoslovakia that holds the official title of being the most beer-sodden country in the world.

According to official beer-drinking records, the boozy Czechs knock back more beer per capita than anybody else, anywhere else. But take heart dear Brits! As beer in Czechoslovakia is, like everywhere else on the opposite side of the Channel, lager, and in Czechoslovakia dominated by Pilsner lager, we Brits can still claim with pride and satisfaction that the UK is the only country in the world in which two great institutions, real ale and the public house, have come together over the centuries to form a unique drinking culture. (Spirit-lifting background music of ‘Real Ale Britannia, Real Ale rules the craves, thanks to Fox and Farage Brits will never be PC slaves!’)

“Good evening landlord, a pint of Farage please.”

“Would that be a pint of ‘Farage Best He Made Them Bitter’ or a pint of ‘Farage Patriot’?”

But we are not here today to talk about national institutions, history and how the unholy trinity, Politics~Globalism~Pandemic-scare, are out to eradicate them, or to dwell forlornly on poor cold, wet and shivering Brits sitting in pub beer gardens six feet apart from one another sipping ale through a useless mask. No, we are here today, in the here and now, to consider the merits/demerits of a Russian beer known as Czech Recipe. Whether the recipe is Czech or simply called Czech Recipe, as Czechs and beer go together like volume and ringing cash registers, I will leave to your discretion.

Nowhere near as exciting by name as Farage’s ‘EU Looking at Me!’ bitter, or BLM’s ‘Churchill Still Stands’ jet-black porter, Czech Recipe might sound like a cake mix, which comes in a bottle just short of 1.5 litres, has a green label and the name in olde worlde script, but contrarily this light, filtered, live beer produced by the Lipetsk brewery is quite a tasty brew.

Green in colour, until you take the top off the bottle and pour it into your glass, Czech Recipe has a pale golden hue, a faint aroma of no particular kind (so forget about all those pretentious beer reviews that compare it to Elton John’s piano, with ‘notes’ of this and ‘notes’ of that) and a foamy head that could not recede faster were it wearing a loose-fitting toupée.

Sip ~ it’s zesty.

Sip ~ it’s tangy.

Gulp ~ it’s crisp.

Gulp gone ~ it is very refreshing …

Czech Recipe is all these things, and it is also 4.7%.

The aftertaste, which is so important whatever beer you are quaffing, because it is this that keeps you quaffing, is dry. In fact, it is very dry. ‘Nuts!’ you say, and you are right. The dry, crisp aftertaste is what makes it the perfect complement to nuts and other snacks. It teases the palate, without raping it, and offers a flirtatious relationship free from guilt ~ even though it is not real ale. It is, in fact, the sort of Czech you could easily take home to meet your mum. Strong to a degree but, as Leonard Cohen sang (I don’t know whether he drank it?) ‘It’s light, light enough to let it go …’

Czech Recipe Beer in Kaliningrad

The world’s perception of Czech beer is Pilsner and, since I am no great fan of Pilsner, I get all suspicious and cautious about buying it. Usually, I will stand there in the shop staring at it, thinking ‘dare I’? Czech Recipe could have been a recipe for a taste disaster, but it bucked the trend (yes, I have spelt it right) and once sampled left me feeling as happy as a pig in … a large grass field.

A lot of the beers that I have been drinking in Kaliningrad ~ not that I have been drinking a lot, you understand, it’s just an expression ~ is much stronger than the 4.2 percent I would normally go for was I drinking in England (voice in the two and six pennies, “Yeah, leave it out …!”). But, I have found that often the lighter strength beers here are light on taste and flavour, and you need to buy something with a bit more welly to compensate (same voice, “Strewth, I’ve ‘eard it all now!”).

Czech Recipe fills the gap in the market and fills it nicely. It is a reasonably strong beer, but one that is more concerned with delivering taste than with blowing your pants and socks off ~ and that’s fine by me, for the last thing that I want is to be left standing there with a Czech in my hand wearing nothing but my cravat.

Well, my bars nearly open, so note the essentials below, put your trainers on and hot foot it down to the shop. Buy yourself some of the Recipe and see for yourself.

If my appraisal is wrong, I’ll let you buy me a bottle.

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Czech Recipe
Brewer: Lipetsk Brewery
Where it is brewed: Lipetsk, Russia
Bottle capacity: 1.42 litres
Strength: 4.7%
Price: It cost me about 147 rubles (£1.41)
Appearance: Pale golden
Aroma: I haven’t decided
Taste: Zesty, refreshing, hoppy with dry aftertaste
Fizz amplitude: 6/10
Label/Marketing: Old School
Would you buy it again? I have done
Marks out of 10: 6.5+

>>>>>>>The Lipetsk Brewery Russia

Lifting the bridge on Leningradskoe beer

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

Article 12: Leningradskoe

Published: 29 March 2021 ~ Lifting the bridge on Leningradskoe beer

Over the past few weeks, I have been playing it safe. Whenever I have had ‘the ‘ankerings’, as my old East London friend used to call the acute desire for beer, I have gone for something tried, tested and approved, which in my case has been Lidskae and Ostmark. But what’s life without a bit of diversity (not too much, mind; look what it’s done to the UK!)?

Lifting the bridge on Leningradskoe beer

You don’t drink the label but, as with all that we consume, appearance and packaging is everything. The same rule applies whether you are shopping in the supermarket for pasta or shopping in your local nightclub. Being a lover of the past, it is not surprising that I usually go for beers the bottles of which are labelled as though they belong in the archives of a library’s historic records section or carry a typeface and/or image that speaks of the quality of things that were and which can never be again.

On this drinking occasion, a few weeks ago, I chose something that on first consideration might seem to go against the selective criteria grain, inasmuch as the branding has a stark, cold, metallic-feel about it, but, if you look again, you will see that the purchase compulsion was inspired in much the same way as it was when I chose Gold Mine beer. In fact, if you compare the labels of the two products the dissimilarities are insignificant. Both incorporate cool blue, white and gold colours and both favour cityscape skylines, silhouettes picked out by a mystical luminosity, somewhere between the aegis of dusk and dawn.

Then I was talking about Gold Mine beer; here I am referring to the beer Leningradskoe. In the case of the latter, the imagery concerns itself with Leniningrad, an open river bridge set against the domes and spires of St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad, after it was St Petersburg ~ if you know what I mean?). So, although it is not a million years ago, the historical connection still holds true. I suppose the attraction lies in the disequilibrium, the nearness and distance evoked by the reversing memory of the Soviet Union.

Lifting the bridge on Leningradskoe beer

So, purchase compulsion explained, let’s get down to the drinking of it.

The initial aroma is one of strong corn, in other words it is grainy rather than anything else. It arrives in the glass looking like Gold Mine’s long, lost brother ~ bright and golden. The head fizzes, rises to an inch but dissolves rather smartishly, leaving just a trace ~ a little bit like a lifting draw bridge: up one minute and down the next. The beer’s carbonation does not, from its appearance within the glass, have an overwhelming disposition, but there is sufficient of it to ensure that it holds up the relatively low flavour, rather like a pair of 1940s’ braces. In fact, I suspect that it is the carbonation that keeps the body of the beer afloat, the cunning adjunct that delivers the touch-of-bitter taste which sets it apart from bog-standard lager.

The aftertaste is not strong, but it is palatable, becoming more so after the initial twang has died. To my mind, and tastebuds, it is this feature, two pints later, that most distinguishes and recommends it. In the last analysis, it is a kind of half-way house, occupying a surprising place somewhere between keg bitter and lager, and because in its earlier stages it is clear and crisp, although I was drinking it on the outskirts of winter, in the midst of a nice summer’s day, whilst sitting back in the garden watching your wife do the weeding, I anticipate that it would be cool ~ as cool as the label suggests ~ and also rather refreshing.

So, whilst you are buying your wife a trowel in preparation for summer, don’t forget to treat yourself to a bottle of Leningradskoe. You know, if nobody else does, that you deserve it!

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Leningradskoe
Brewer: Baltika Breweries
Where it is brewed: St Petersburg
Bottle capacity: 1.5 litres
Strength: 4.7%
Price: It cost me about 137 rubles (£1.32)
Appearance: Pale golden
Aroma: Strong corn
Taste: Hybrid lager & keg bitter with satisfying after taste
Fizz amplitude: 5/10
Label/Marketing: Soviet
Would you buy it again? Would do
Marks out of 10: 6

Oak & Hoop Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Article 11: Oak & Hoop beer

Published: 31 January 2021

I developed a taste for beer when I was about 14 years old, about the time that they turned a blind eye to my age and began to let me through the doors of the village local. Some might say that is a very tender age to be supping and that I should be ashamed of myself, but, of course, I am not. The one thing I have learnt, or subscribed to, as I approach the senior years of my life is that there is nothing so true as the philosophical adage, ‘live life whilst you are young’. I know this to be the touchstone of our brief earthly existence because now that I am older I cannot drink half as much beer as I could when I should not have been drinking it. Ahh, happy days: vitals in their unsullied prime and Courage Tavern on tap. It was “What your right arm’s for”, or so went the advertising slogan, possibly to remind those pub-going blokes back in the 1970s that it was not just something with a fist on the end that you threw after several pints.

But we must leave reminiscences of real pubs, real men and the days of pre-real ale to focus on the latest addition to my bottled beers of Kaliningrad review, which today features another one of those offerings served up in squat dumpy bottles.

All of the beers in this series of reviews are available through general supermarkets, and this is no exception.

Oak & Hoop Beer in Kaliningrad

Oak & Hoop beer comes from the same brewery, the Trisosensky Plant, from which the beer Soft Barley derives, which was the subject of my previous review, and, as with the previous review, I have only good things to say.

First off, you’ve just got to love the advertising. Not only a small plastic beer barrel, but one adorned with a crafted piece of card attached to the pouring top and draped Mason’s apron style from head to toe. The alluring impression is instantaneously craft beer. A crafted piece of card craftily cut and composed to convince the consumer that what lies within is craft. The image of mallet, barrel and stool, all in wood, naturally, with vintage-leaning display type and mellow beer-brown colours all contribute handsomely to the presentation, promise and promotion of a traditional, quality beverage. Oh, and lookee here, notice the awards attained, signified by the august presence of three gold medallions.

I had to buy it. I had to drink it. I liked it.

NOTE: More information on the brewery in my previous article Soft Barley beer in Kaliningrad

I deduced from the first nasal observation a seductive compilation enticingly in favour of roasted malts and caramel, which corresponded perfectly with my long-standing prejudice for brews whilst though they may not be ales as such yet display certain defining characteristics making them more akin to ale than their pallid pilsner counterparts, for which I make no secret of courting less than great affection.

But we are not here to sniff it. We will leave that pleasure for wine drinkers and let them spit it out.

**Award-winning Oak & Hoop beer in Kaliningrad, Russia**

As first tastes go, there was no doubt in my mind that I had spent my 147 rubles wisely. The caramel and malt bouquet delivered the taste promised by the aroma. Rounded and mellow with just a hint of bitterness, the sweet incipience gives way to a dry, satisfying, lingering taste, the parity of which makes strange bedfellows out of any critical notion that the two could live apart.

This subtle liaison discreetly belies its AVG manliness, which, at 4.9%, packs a not unreasonable clout, but then let’s not be bashful, it’s what your right arms for.

Oak & Hoop Beer in Kaliningrad

If I have learnt anything about beer it is that the first likeable sip does not necessarily equate in taste to love at first sight; you may like, you may love, or imagine you do, but if it be love that willingly takes you happily to the end of the glass, then be sure that it will be lust that brings you back for more.

We are continually reminded, bordello fashion, that pleasures in life have to be paid for, and the pleasure of Oak & Hoop is worth every penny and every ruble, so go for it before you get too old!

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Oak & Hoop
Brewer: Trisosensky brewery
Where it is brewed: Ulyanovsk and Dimitrovgrad, Russia
Bottle capacity: 1.5 litres
Strength: 4.9%
Price: It cost me about 137 rubles (£1.32)
Appearance: Pale golden
Aroma: Hops & caramel
Taste: Subtle, attractive blend of sweet & dry with caramel
Fizz amplitude: 5/10
Label/Marketing: Traditional
Would you buy it again? I intend to.
Marks out of 10: 9

NOTE: More information on the brewery in my previous article Soft Barley beer in Kaliningrad

Soft Barley beer in Kaliningrad Russia

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

Article 10: Soft Barley beer

Published: 14 December 2020

None of us want to be told that we are going soft, do we? But, unless you are one of these old-fashioned he-men who pumps weights, never cries and walk around as if their arms don’t fit, there is nothing wrong with a little bit of mellowness, when the mood so takes you, which is not why I chose Soft Barley as the latest in a succession of bottled beers widely available through Kaliningrad supermarkets as an aid to my research.

Among the all-shapes-and-sizes 1.5 litre beer bottles that congregate enticingly on Kaliningrad’s shop shelves, the ones that really stand out from the crowd are, in fact, the simplest. They are squat, fat, dumpy-looking things, shaped purposefully to resemble small beer barrels. They are to beer advertising what Body Shop is to shampoos and body lotions, their simple packaging and minimalist presentation emphasising good, natural, salt-of-the-earth products, free from artificial additives: Nature’s best at its best.

When all’s said and done, that’s quite a gob full to live up to and, whilst the advertising works a treat, the question is does the product fulfil the promise?

Soft Barley beer in Kaliningrad Russia

Soft Barley has a soft natural label ~ note the ears of corn ~ and when you take the top off the bottle what do you get? Sniff! Sniff! Nothing really. Unless I am losing my sense of smell (no, let’s rephrase that symptom quickly!) ~ unless my olfactory senses deceive me, there is no distinctive aroma other than, perhaps, a faintly discernible ‘softness’.

When poured, this underwhelming neutrality does not escape from the glass. The beer fizzes, an ephemeral head appears, retreats and then dissolves. This is only depressing if you like ‘a big creamy ‘ed on your pint’, but I am not from Yorkshire, so I don’t.

Nevertheless, from the first sip to the last the taste is consistently palatable. There are no sharp notes to undermine the ‘soft’, as in subtle, and almost any corn bitterness is reduced to a hint, playing second fiddle to the rounded buttery overtones.

This beer is not, by Russian standards, a strong brew; if it was, I suppose they would have called it ‘Strong Barley’, but neither at 4.2% is it limp-wristed. It has just enough bottle, taste and flavour to make it the perfect complement to light snacks and ‘bitings’, an à la carte beer which speaks to me of warm summer afternoons, picnic tables and straw hats, although, being a bit of a renegade, I can close my ears and carry on drinking it until the snow has melted.

Aficionados and advocates of seriously head-banging beers may well pour scorn upon your choice, but pour scorn is not poor corn and drinking Soft Barley does not mean that you are going soft, just that you have a soft spot for the finer beers in life.

ABOUT THE BREWERY
The Trisosensky brewery has a proud and noble brewing history, its origins dating to 1888. Its name comes from the three great pine trees on the idyllic lakeside spot where it was founded by the merchant family Markov.

One of the first Russian breweries to produce beer using European technology, the quality of its products quickly established the company’s reputation at home and facilitated expansion into the export market.

The brewery’s Black, Pilsen, Czech and Vienna beers were particularly held in high regard, so much so that in 1910 the brewery was honoured with the official title ‘Supplier to the Court of His Imperial Majesty’.

Although the Ulyanovsk brewery was assimilated more recently into the company, its brewing history actually pre-dates that of Trisosensky, when Alexander Dmitrievich Sachkov, an honorary citizen of the city of Simbirsk, founded his honey brewery at Ulyanovsk in 1862.

Today, the Trisosensky brewery prides itself on the historic continuity of its classic brewing techniques, brewing traditional beers to traditional recipes using natural ingredients and talented brewers.

Its efforts have garnered it various prestigious awards including: the World Beer Awards; the International Beer Challenge; Gold Awards, the DLG Quality Test for Beer and Mixed Beer Beverages, Frankfurt am Main, 2016; Monde Selection 2017 awards; and awards in the ‘International Tasting Competition’, The Beer Awards 2017.

Soft Barley beer in Kaliningrad Russia

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Soft Barley
Brewer: Trisosensky brewery
Where it is brewed: Ulyanovsk, Russia
Bottle capacity: 1.5 litres
Strength: 4.2%
Price: It cost me about 127 rubles (£1.31)
Appearance: Pale golden
Aroma: Very nearly silent
Taste: Lightly bitter, mellow, buttery
Fizz amplitude: 6/10
Label/Marketing: Naturalistic
Would you buy it again? I would and I have.
Marks out of 10: 8

Three Bears Crystal beer in Kaliningrad Russia

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

Article 9: Three Bears Crystal beer

Published: 27 November 2020

Whenever I see a beer bottle or can in a Russian supermarket with three bears (tree meeshkee) on the label, I am smitten by a wave of nostalgia, as this was quite possibly the first bottled beer brand that I drank when I came to Kaliningrad.

Memory is a fallible thing, for mine suggests that I first drank Three Bears on my inaugural trip to Kaliningrad in the winter of 2000, whereas research indicates that the Three Bears made their Russian debut in 2002. Be this as it may, there is no denying that the brand has established itself as quintessentially Russian and could hardly have failed to do otherwise, as I cannot think of anything more emblematically Russian than a bear logo, except perhaps for a ooshanka, ~ come now, of course you know what I mean, one of those furry hats with a flap down either side.

Typically Russian in appearance, the Three Bears brand is in fact brewed by international brewers Heineken, which, having penetrated the Russian beer market in 2002, is now reputed to be up there among the top 10 brewers in Russia.

Three Bears Crystal beer in Kaliningrad Russia

The Three Bears brand has four variants: Three Bears Classic; Three Bears Light; Three Bears Crystal; and Three Bears Strong. At 7% ABV the Three Bears Strong speaks for itself: it sort of goes, ‘Grrrr’; the Classic at 4.9% ABV is not so ‘Grrrr’, but it is still ‘Grrr’; the Three Bears Crystal at 4.4% is no pussy cat; but as you would expect Three Bears Light is a mere 4.7% ABV ~ er, wait a moment, am I missing something here? Perhaps when they say ‘Light’ they mean light colour?

I chose Three Bears Crystal beer because when I have a session I will normally drink a couple of 1.5 litre bottles of beer in one sitting. How much of a lush you judge me to be will be entirely predicated on your own consumption criteria, namely, “Woah, too much!” or “What! Call that a session! I’d have that for breakfast!” The difference lies somewhere between broadcast and boast; prohibition and politician; and promise and perversion ~ all three tinged by the ‘men will always be men’ and ‘men will always be boys’ maxims, which could cause controversy by the time they reach the end of the UK rainbow but garner some butch-like brownie points with feminists on the way.

Sorry, all this has about as much to do with Three Bears Crystal beer as Biden’s worldview has with reality and, unless you know a feminist called Goldilocks, and you might, as the name fits, you would be better off not going down to the woods today but staying at home with Crystal.

I did, and was I in for that Big Surprise?

In the bottle and in the glass, Three Bears Crystal has an attractive amber tone making it the empathic ale for amber-lands consumption. Its hoppy, bitter fragrance tends to waft away a few minutes after the beer has been decanted, enough in these troubled times to alarm you with the question, “Am I losing my sense of smell?”, but, needing no better excuse to quickly take the taste test, as soon as it hits your tongue you breathe a sigh of relief: “Ahhh, yes, it was worth every ruble of the 125 rubles I coughed up for it,” ~ whilst wearing my mask, of course.

Three Bears Crystal has, what I like to refer to, as a ‘straw taste’ ~ and I seriously do not mean this derogatively. I know that it does not sound shampers or even Merlot, and most probably imparts itself from my days as a teenage farmer, but whatever the derivative, this term to me captures a specific beer experience in which the initial bitterness is offset by a blunt edge, a saturating mellowness. This is not to say that Three Bears Crystal does not pack a zing, although my suspicions are that it is the carbonation that does it, which is the ‘also source’ of the illusory bitter tang that retains itself after consumption, but for all that the essence of this beer is decidedly Matt Monro ~ an easy-on-the palate version of easy listening on the ears.

Three Bears Crystal beer is a session beer

In words that every beer-quaffing Englishman will readily understand, Three Bears Crystal is in my judgement a sound-as-a-pound (and as right-as-a-ruble) session beer.

It goes down lovely with a packet of crisps and a handful of nuts, which you would not be able to enjoy it with in an English pub at present owing to the latest virus curfew laws, which seem to imply that coronavirus hides in pubs waiting to pounce predatorily on those who would rather snack with their pint than eat a ‘substantial meal’, ie a large plate of burgers, frozen peas and reconstituted chips ~ the pub-grub answer to the vaccine.

Conclusion: The message is Crystal clear. You don’t have to get a Vaccine Passport and fly to the UK for a ‘substantial meal’. Three Bears Crystal can be found in most Kaliningrad supermarkets in 1.5 litre bottles at a price you cannot growl at. Why not buy two bottles! Should you over do it, there is always the hair of the bear!

Three Bears Crystal beer in Kaliningrad — Three Bears Crystal beer

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Three Bears Crystal
Brewer: Heineken
Where it is brewed: St Petersburg and in other Russian locations
Bottle capacity: 1.5 litres
Strength: 4.4%
Price: It cost me about 125 rubles (£1.23)
Appearance: Light amber
Aroma: Not much
Taste: Light bitterness, the equivalent of a British light or pale ale
Fizz amplitude: 5/10
Label/Marketing: Traditional Russian
Would you buy it again? I have, on several occasions