If you caught me soon after I returned from my trip to Russia this past summer, there was a good chance that I told you about my desire to host a taste test featuring the full line-up of beers from Балтика (Baltika) brewing. It was a request slightly out of (my beer) character; you see, Baltika brews lagers - almost exclusively - and I'm not a fan of lagers in general. But! With my adventures in Russia still on the forefront of my mind, the novelty of tracking down the ten different Baltika beers, numbered from 0 to 9, seemed fun and worthwhile.
Baltika No. 0 is a non-alcoholic lager
Baltika No. 1 is a light lager, at 4.4% abv
Baltika No. 2 is a pale lager, at 4.7% abv
Baltika No. 3 is a pale lager, at 5.1% abv
Baltika No. 4 is a Vienna lager, at 5.6% abv
Baltika No. 5 is a golden lager, at 5.0% abv
Baltika No. 6 is a Baltic porter, at 7.0% abv
Baltika No. 7 is an export lager, 5.4% abv
Baltika No. 8 is an unfiltered wheat ale, at 5.0% abv
Baltika No. 9 is a strong export lager, at 8.0% abv
*There are a couple more "special" beers that really don't get much distribution, so the list above is really what I was looking for; Baltika also brews some other product lines (like Арсенальное), but, again, the list above suffices for my (ahem, imagined) purposes.*
Soon, though, my taste buds reigned in such fanciful (and alcoholic) fascinations - back to my usual kickass West Coast ales! - and the tasting never came to fruition. So it was only yesterday that I came across another Baltika beer. And, in fact, it was the infamous No. 9! haha.
No. 9 is, for sure, the go-to beer for bang-for-your-gettin'-drunk-buck (if you're not drinking cheap vodka, that is). At 8.0% abv, a few half-liters will put you on your ass.. and along the way, you know exactly what you're getting into, given it doesn't try to hide its alcohol at all. Yikes! Fortunately, I was sharing a couple of bottles with a few people over a homestyle Russian dinner at Sadko, a Russian restaurant in the Outer Richmond. It was, I can assure you, the first time that I poured Baltika No. 9 into a wine glass (once I emptied it of its original contents: квас); in fact, it was the first time I wouldn't have thought to drink it straight from the bottle.
In any case, if you want to know what Russian food "is", I'd recommend checking out Sadko; you'll even get that stereotypical Russian service (i.e. brusk) included in the price! haha. From a culinary perspective, it helped that I was there with my Ukrainian buddy and a crew from his work (but only my buddy speaks Russian; the rest were even more clueless than me at what they were getting into). As such, he ordered a huge amount of "classic" Russian food and drink for the lot of us; and so, we got to try a lot of different dishes at once. Good stuff!
And while I'll be no substitute translator, if you're interested in going, let me know; I certainly plan on a return trip. While I'm (still) not going to be craving Russian food on any sort of regular basis, the overall ambiance certainly has a place in my heart; at the least, Sadko's version of квас was the best I've had (and it comes in pitchers).
Of course, if you're just interested in a Baltika No. 9 experience, I think we can skip the restaurant altogether and track one down - one for each of us, that is - from a local grocery and just hang out in the park. Classic, for sure (even if we have to paper-bag it; the SF police look down upon the open container)!
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