Baltika 6 Porter

Brewed by Baltika Brewery (Baltic Beverages Holding - Carlsberg)
Style: Baltic Porter
St. Petersburg, Russia

Serve in English pint, Shaker, Snifter

This brewery continues to surprise me. Very dark, good tan head. Lots of coffee and chocolate aroma with a thick, coffee and nutty taste with a slight dark roast burn in the finish. Surprisingly good.

A bottle pour: deep, dark, almost opaque with a big dark tan head. It has a thin burnt malt aroma, with hints of caramel and coffee. Baltika 6 has a medium and a smooth palate, with sweetness - fudge? - in the taste and no bitterness to speak of. It’s a very drinkable porter without a lot of pretension; and (off the shelf at Spec’s here) it offers outstanding value for the money.

Bottle pours brown-black with foamy light brown head. Malty . Taste sweet malts, roast, caramel, hint of chocolate. Palate medium-thick, a touch sticky. Mild alcohol presence. Finish prolonged but I hesitate to call it bitter or hoppy, more of a mild burnt roast. I like it and would drink it again, but there are certainly porters I prefer to this one.

Whilst not the strongest Baltic Porter by any means in terms of alcohol, at 7% ABV, this is certainly one of the sweetest and most cloying. I also think the lack of carbonation helped to make it feel almost like watered down treacle. As Goldilocks might have put it, this one is too sweet!

500 ml bottle @ home. Rated @ 21.2.2010.
Dark brown colour with a thick white head. Dark fruits, roasted malts and caramel on the nose. Flavour of pleasant roastiness, caramel, mild hops. Medium bodied and a warming finish. Pretty good and goes well with food.

Having bought this lately, I couldn’t wait to open it. Russia’s number 1. Well that is quite a name to live up to. It mostly delivers just that. I can almost taste the roasted salty fish caught in Siberian waters and the smokey fires that keep the Inuit from Kamchatka warm. I wonder why all those Russians drink vodka if they have this, I definitely prefer this over a vodka. But I’m more of a whisky person anyways. Is that peat in the finish? Ahh, great. I’m off enjoying this further.

500 mL bottle. Pours black and nearly opaque with a massive dark tan head. The aroma is huge syrupy malts, coffee, and seawater. The flavor is almost like bittersweet chocolate. The body is medium and the palate is smooth. Not a bad beer, and definitely the best Baltika I’ve had yet.

Not that impressed. It’s decent, but out of the Russian beers I have had it was pretty good I guess. Not my fav, but I’m looking into more kinds of Russian beers to see whats out there. Taste was normal for the color and aroma, different but not bad at all.