Baltika #9 (Commie Beer)

The Baltika logo- Rough translation: we shall bury the capitalist swine with superior beer, and socialist brew of the people shall triumph

In 1998 I had the opportunity to do some spy work, I mean a student exchange trip to Moscow. Boris Yeltsin was still president, and the entire country had a strange wild west feel to it. Being a 17 year old, what really appealed to me was the fact that they let anyone drink and smoke, as long as they had enough rubles in their pockets. Russian smokes were 3 rubles a pack ($0.50 USD) and made your lung just pack up and quit. A pint of Russian beer was 6 rubles a pop ($1.00 USD) at the corner kiosks. I learned quite a bit in those three weeks, namely that I love to drink and to smoke and that drunk Americans can get away with peeing anywhere in Moscow. As my Russian host said “Who cares! Its Russia. The entire place is a shit-hole.” And eleven years ago it was! It was awesome! There were still hammer and sickles on all the buildings, the TV stations played bootlegged american movies (taped on a camcorder in a theater... and shown on their national stations!), the ruble was so worthless that they just took off 3 zeros and started over again (some of the bills said 5 rubles and some said 5,000 but they were worth the exact same). After 9 years of Putin the economy is back on track, Moscow is an expensive place to live, and I bet that I would have gotten beaten up for peeing in public. Although looking back, all the cops in Moscow did carry mini AKs and a corruption you could almost taste in the air. I suppose I got off lucky.

But back to the beer: I developed a love for Baltika #6, their porter offering. You see, Baltika is THE beer in Russia. Established in 1990, they are based in Saint Petersburg and according to Wikipedia they are the second largest brewery in Europe. Mind you, this is their only major brewery and it has been open for just 19 years! Russians have a long history of drinking vodka, and drinking that to excess. The idea of cracking open a few cold ones and still being able to walk home without a wheel barrow was a new concept to them. Russians were shocked that they could drink beer all night, and not wake up with unexplained stab wounds. So along with capitalism, they decided to give another American institution the ol' college-try: BEER! Now they don’t follow the American tradition of giving fancy names to each of their beer offerings. Nope, they follow an orderly socialist method of just slapping a number on each type. Baltika #1 is their Bud Light version, Baltika #2 is their Budweiser, Baltika #3 is a pale lager, etc etc etc. So you see, all you have to do to order is just be upright enough to reach a bar and lift up enough fingers to indicate your desired variety.

Finding this beer in the states has been next to impossible until just a couple of years ago. I remember back in 2005 I visited my drunkard-in-arms Marty when he was stationed in Virginia, and he managed to order some bottles at a huge markup off the webernets. The last time that we tried it we were both 17 and young and stupid. We were then 25 and still young and stupid, but we had quite a bit more beer drinking under our belts. And I am happy to report that the beer were still pretty freaking tasty. Not bad Russia, not bad at all! Then about a year or two ago I started seeing Baltika being offered in specialty liquor stores and even grocery stores in the suburban western reaches of St Louis County. It made sense though because there is a rather large Russian and eastern European community in St Louis. And they are bringing their new found taste for communist beer with them!

So I went to the Tinderbox in Columbia MO yesterday to peruse their bourbon offerings, and the beer cooler caught my eye. It was stocked with BALTIKA! And they had several of the varieties, all retailing for $2.75 for a pint. So I grabbed a few of the 6’s, and I decided to live on the edge and grab a #9. The #9 is their “strong lager” which packs a hefty 8% ABV. That stuff will knock you on your butt. How does it taste? Heavy, gross, and disgusting. Ever drink a high gravity lager or malt liquor? Like Cammo, or Steel Reserve? Yeah, its like that. Gross. Honestly if you want piss yourself with a strong beer, I would recommend that you try the Trippel by New Belgium brewery. That’s also crazy amounts of strong at 7.8% ABV but it tastes umpteen times better. To further its street cred it is made by American’s, not nasty foreign commu-nazis. But expect to see a full range of the Baltika line reviewed here later!