Just tried another porter which I guess you can call Baltic. It’s called “6″, brewed by Russian brewery Baltika in St. Petersbourg. They claim it’s produced according to an “old english recipe.” It tastes really good compared to the others I mentioned, which is surprising as other Baltika’s beers I tried were quite crap.

My plans for London is to spend a week visiting friends, preferably in my favourite pubs. I’ll grab some bottles anyway and even if we don’t meet they won’t be thrown away I promise.

Thanks for the offer to bring us beer — that kind of offer is always welcome! We’re out of town on a beer-related jaunt the weekend of the 19th/20th (more about that on the blog nearer the time…) so I don’t imagine we’ll have chance to meet up.

What are your plans for London? Let us know if you want any tips!

Here in Lithuania, we’re not even aware of existence of “Baltic Porter” as a style. Dark beers are not too popular in Lithuania (while the same cannot be said about strong ones, strong lagers from 6.5% to maximum legal 9.5% are abound).

Still the major breweries usually have at least one sort of dark beer. Utenos Porteris may be the most known, while Kauno Alus (http://www.kaunoalus.lt), who claim to use “open fermentation”, produces decent Senasis Porteris (“Old Porter”, 7%) and Birzieciu stout (8%). Another brewery from Kaunas Horn (http://www.horn.lt, former Ragutis) releases seasonal Honey Porter (5.6%), whose toasted character is best to my taste.

Recreated Butautu Dvaro brewery from Birzai, the traditional brewing region, is the only one to my knowledge that bottle non-pasteurized traditional stout-ish beer. It’s called Tamsusis (“The Dark One”, 6%), has a very strong malt presence, and is sold in neat 1 l bottles. Birzu Alus brewery from the same region is one of the oldest in the country, based in 1686. Among a few interesting sorts (http://www.birzualus.lt/apie.html) it produces dark Senovinis (“Olde”, 7.5%). Unfortunately this one, as well as many other beers from small traditional breweries are only available locally ad only on tap.

Coming to London next weekend I can grab a couple of bottles of the mentioned for your testing pleasure, B&B.

Time to step up the campaign! I can’t believe all these shops import several virtually identical lagers and never any of the dark stuff.

I have a DDR brewing manual from the 1950’s with an excellent description of how to brew a strong Porter.

Now THAT, Ron, is why I love you …

There were a few breweries in East Germany that produced a Porter, though I only ever got to taste one. As I recall, it was similar to Polish Porters.

Ricklinger Landbrauerei in Schleswig-Holstein seems to brew a Porter using brettanmyces.