Big flippers

Scouring the lower beer shelves at speciality grocer Polonez turned up these two beers, from Lithuanian conglomerate Aukštaitijos Bravorai. Both are in distinctive flip-top one-litre bottles. A big commitment, but that just shows the effort I go to for you.

Keptinis is first, and I know enough about Lithuanian brewing to tell you that that's the style rather than a beer name: a traditional brewing method which involves oven-baked malt. That it says so on the label in English steals my nerdy thunder somewhat. It also says it's an unfiltered dark lager, and I'm not sure if that's part of the spec, but it is helpful.

In the glass it's a murky red-brown colour, with a thin and fine head of off-white bubbles. Few beers have an aroma as malt-forward as this, smelling like nougat, Mars bars, and assorted other confectioneries which rely heavily on malt extract. Thankfully it's a lager, so while the flavour goes all-in on malt sweetness, that's set on a pristine clean body, feeling very light for 5.7% ABV, though a long way from thin. Caramel, vanilla, condensed milk and praline chocolates all feature, plus a little red fruit complexity, hinting at strawberry or raspberry. How it doesn't cloy is wizardry. Instead, it tastes wholesome, warming and nutritious; refined rather than rustic. A litre was much less work to get through than I expected.

I'm in the dark as regards the meaning of Magaryčių, but the brewery helpfully tells us it's a dialect term for the celebration after success in negotiation. Seems legit, given some of the nonsense that passes for beer names these days. The description on the label says it's "unfiltered special technology semi-pale beer" which I fear may have lost something in the translation. There's caramel malt, though: that's made clear.

The beer, conversely, is not. It's that unattractive muddy shade you get when a copper coloured beer is left unfined. I suppose it's meant to look rustic, but to me the colour will always carry associations of bad homebrewed bitter. Other people's, obviously. The aroma tells me that it's not dissimilar to the previous beer: warm malt loaf with a hint of runny toffee sauce. At 5.8% ABV, it's very slightly stronger than the last one, and is similarly weighty and malt-driven. Paradoxically, it's a little lighter, however, with more of a lager crispness (ie a tiny amount) and even a faint echo of hop bitterness. It's fine, but I drank these in the wrong order. Everything Magaryčių does, the Keptinis does bigger and better.

Something to be said for traditional brewing practices here, perhaps, even if it takes a big-brand company to show it. Fire up the oven.