So some of Lauren’s hippie tree-hugging stink must be starting to rub off on me, here is how chickens tie to my beer. I am really digging this all natural, home grown, home brewed vibe, so I bought 10 hops rhizomes and I’m going to plant them soon. So I want to use my own hops in my beer, I know where they come from and what if any pesticides will be applied. So in that same vein, chickens are not only an excellent source of delicious drug free eggs, they also produce a ton of home grown fertilizer a.k.a chicken shit. So I will compost this into a healthy fertilizer and use it to fertilize my bines. (hops are grown on bines, where grapes on grown on vines). Also another benefit from my chickens is pest control. When I grew hops before they were ripped to shreds by Japanese beetles. So these five voracious, vicious little beaks will take care of that problem for me and I should get a better cone harvest. So their you have it, chickens make good beer. Now on to the Russians…….
Also this week, I have had the opportunity to try a couple of Russian beers. My Pop is an electrician and works for a contracting company. One of the guys he works with is straight off the boat Russian, Lenny (Insert incredibly hard to pronounce Russian name here). So Lenny is a big fan of beer, and my Pop is always bragging about my beer, so he took a few into Lenny to try, and Lenny being the upstanding guy he is made it an even trade and gave my Pop four Russian beers from Beers of the World. The first is:
Now apparently Russian beers are all graded on a number scale. That’s what Lenny said, but somewhere in the translation, I lost what the numbers actually stood for. So here is Baltika 3 and it just says its a “Classic Beer” and it is 4.8% alc. Now the price tag and the #3 should have been a warning. When the price is $0.97 per bottle you know you are in for it, but what the hell it was free beer, right? It poured very clear and had a sparkling white head.
And then everything went bad. There was a slightly skunky aroma, but still I decided to taste it. The body was very light, but then the taste hit me. It tasted like Heineken and Busch Light had twins, then the twins inbred and had a baby that reproduced with a Keystone and that glorious love child is Baltika 3. The taste just wasn’t that pleasant. The more I drank, the more my mouth began to taste like it was sucking on a skunk’s ass. But that little voice in my head kept repeating “There’s no such thing as bad beer, there is only better beer.” and with that I powered it down and called it a night. Time to check the score: Russia 1 – Naps 0.
So I gathered up my courage the next night and decided to take on Russia for Round 2.
Baltika #9 Extra Lager. It was 8% alc by volume, so that was a little more promising. I pulled out a nice clean glass and let it pour.
So it was a nice pale, crystal clear lager, with a nice full head comprised of tiny tiny bubbles. I poked my nose down into that head and assessed the aroma, and what I found was little to none. Well even that was a promising sign after smelling the skunky smell from Baltika #3. So I decide it can’t be that bad, and take a big sip and the instant picture in my head is a warm green glass beer bottle ala Heineken, Rolling Rock, Becks, etc. So its a little skunky. But not that bad, its still very drinkable and it settles into its own quite quickly. The skunkiness dissipates and the beer becomes much better the more of it goes down. So the score is now even Russia 1 – Naps 1.Overall, the Russian beers are nothing I would pay for and drink, but of the two the #9 was much better and I could drink it again if it was offered, but I would not be running to get another #3. But in the end, both of them were free, so they were both good because they were free.
If you are brave enough to take on Mother Russia, give these two a try and let me know what you think. Prost!!
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