Soaking up Siberia - Beer

They always had Baltika somewhere there.

Wherever I travel I try to drink mostly local beers. There's nothing like a pint of tasty never-heard-before ale from a local brewery that you're unlikely to find ever again in your home country. I can't even remember (for a reason...) how many different Altbiers I had during some days spent in Düsseldorf, Germany. Then, aside from the micro brewery snobbery there's lager. Despite its notorious reputation of having no taste and even less character, I've always liked lager. It's a perfect drink for thirst, for Finnish sauna, and in my taste darker and richer beers don't always suit that well for tropical conditions, so I tend to grab a locally brewed lager in e.g. South-East Asia even if the taste is like 'sex in a canoe'. Darker, richer beers suit better to autumn and winter time on northern latitudes. What I never do, however, is buy a Heineken, Carlsberg or Fosters or equivalent generic multinational lager. Well, theoretically I could buy one in Holland, Denmark or Australia, because it would be 'local' there, but I tend to fancy some brand I've never had before. So, bulk lager has its place, but the rule of thumb is that craft beer comes first.

Tulgatsgaaya!

My father told me that Russian beer used to be notoriously bad during the Soviet Union times. After the Glasnost and fall of the Union the brewery culture and the demand for quality beers has risen to a new level. I don't know if this was true, but during our week in Russia on the Trans-Siberian rail we quickly picked up the daily habit of buying couple of cold bottles of Baltika 7. I'm not sure why we always chose number seven, probably my father again had this impression it was 'the best' of the Baltika line. Now that I did some research, I found out that there is also other interesting varieties of beer in the series. Only one number up, and it would have been wheat ale. Well, what did Baltika 7 taste like? It was this familiar generic pale lager.  Like any equivalent easy-drink bulk lager, it is good served cold, but not much of a character. The same goes with Sibirskaya Korona, the brand with which we ceremoniously toasted in Moscow before leaving for Siberia.

Mongolia has huge problems with alcoholism within their population; the Russian vodka drinking culture introduced by the communist regime did nothing good for the public health. It still is a common sight to bump into a drunk Mongol in the broad daylight downtown Ulan Bator. However, nowadays the local brewery business has risen and more and more people have changed vodka to beer, which has actually improved the public health. Indeed, Mongolia managed to surprise us with their neat beers. We tried at least Gem draft and Chinggis, which had notable character compared to easy international lagers. Especially Gem was really good. Ulan Bator bathed in the hot sun during our visit, so the best choice for refreshing drink was always a cold pint of Mongolian brewed beer. Many things were left undone by us during our short visit, but I'd go back only for the beer!

Chinese hotel room necessities. And a gas mask.

Like everywhere else, we enjoyed local beers also during the last part of the trip, in China. Again, no big taste bud exploding experiences there with their Tsingtao, Yanjing and several other pale and simple brews we had, but it was always decent to say the least, especially every once in a while during walking in hot smoggy Beijing. The price range was huge: A pint in one restaurant could cost sevenfold compared to another, totally similar establishment.

However the most interesting Chinese beer incidence during this trip wasn't the richness or other quality aspect of the beer. It was the origins: Once we had crossed the Chinese border, after the bogie change, our new cabin mates happily carried a load of Harbin beer for themselves and us from the railway station grocery shop. What made the beer so special was that the city of Harbin, where they brew it, is the twin town of Rovaniemi, Finland, where our cabin mates come from. Ganbei!

Previous chapters of Soaking up Siberia:
- Tea and Coffee
- Kvass
- Vodka (and Wine)