May 15, 2009: Baltika 7

For those few loyal readers out there who are actually keeping up with this blog, we've almost reached the halfway point and interestingly enough, we're about half way through the entire range of Baltika beers. So far my opinion of the Baltika beers has been split, with the official count being three that I enjoyed, and two that I did not. Tonight's beer is Baltika 7 which is their "European Style Export Lager", and could tip the scales either into the direction of superiority or mediocrity. I found the concept of creating a "European Style Export Lager" to be pretty curious for a number of reasons. Essentially by aiming to create a "European Style Export Lager", the brewers at Baltika are admitting to attempting to try to emulate other popular European lagers like Heineken or Stella Artois. Baltika is by definition already a European export lager. Why create a lager and call it "European style export lager"? My guess is that after Baltika 6, they started runnning out of ideas for new kinds of beer to produce (just kidding). Another strange feature of Baltika 7 is the opening mechanism which is an odd sort of pull tab that peels back to reveal a plastic top that simply pops off. It's almost as if the concept of the bottle cap wasn't interesting enough for Baltika 7, so they tried to create something original like the swing top on a bottle of Grolsch. Again, this seemed like an attempt to copy conventions of a more popular export lager, but without the same results.

As far as the taste goes, Baltika 7 isn't half bad. As you would expect from a beer that seeks to imitate other popular european lagers, Baltika 7 is a very mild, evenly flavored beer that doesn't stray too far from the predictable formula of european lager. While Baltika 7 isn't doing anything groundbreaking, it is essentially an exact copy of a recipe that has proven to be wildly successful with beer drinkers alll around the world. Baltika 7 if a whitish gold color with a minimal head, scents of hops, flower and grain, and a light hoppy taste that tastes a bit more watered down than your typical "European Style Export Lager" but not really enough to take away from the taste. All in all, Baltika 7 gets a thumbs up from me despite it's lack of character or originality.

Budem Zdrovy!

Ian

www.Baltikabeer.com