retiredmartin

May 2023.

My most-read post of 2023* is the one about a Greene King Flaming Grill family pub in Sleaford, which rather confirms my view you’d rather read about provincial British like than Baltic craft bars.

That’s a shame, as I was enjoying posting about weird Riga beers a day too late to be useful to tourists.

My next English post will be from West Ham, and you’ll love it, or at least Mr Protz will.

Just Lithuania to go now.

You’ll be delighted to hear the weather was holding up for us as we hurtled towards the weekend;

Almost as if the sun shines on the righteous, or something.

The four hours on a Bolt bus to Kaunas consisted of a straight but single carriageway road punctuated with tractor shops, but mostly with this view;

though we did get a five minute stop in the northern city of Panevėžys, a place of seemingly no note whatsoever bar the fact I’d barely heard of any of its twins;

Some excellent de-twinning there, Panevėžys.

Five minutes was enough for me to go missing as far as Mrs RM was concerned and she was just about to get the coach driver to do an emergency stop when I emerged from the loo.

In truth, the downside of the week was a sense we’d only scratched the surface of three countries by a focus on the major cities and a concern we’d missed out on some scruffier rural bars serving bottles of Pils and dusty rolls for a euro. You know, the Mansfield equivalents in the Baltic.

Two hours later we were deposited at another modern looking coach station (“autobusy”) from where I made Mrs RM walk a mile and a half through the rear of shopping centres housing estates to our Best Western, because I’m all heart.

We’d picked Kaunas (pop. 298,753) over the capital, Vilnius, because it allowed a pleasing straight line for the coach trips through the Baltics, and because it had been the European Capital of Culture in 2022 (along with some village in Luxemburg you’ve never heard of. Maidenhead gets a go next year I think).

Certainly an attractive little place,

spotlessly clean,

with a feline obsession,

but could it do craft ?

If you’re reading this, I doubt you care about that, but Nisha Bar certainly could do craft.

The use of different colour marker pens on the blackboard is the big clue.

One couple on the table outside, two lads down in the basement, accessed via a flight of stairs not to be attempted on your 7th pint,

and a soundtrack straight outta SW6.

“Oooh, they’re from Sheffield and we’re from Sheffield too” said Mrs RM to a completely disinterested bar person. To be fair, we’d made no effort at all to learn Lithuanian.

A request for “local beer” also got a bit of a sigh and a request to read the beer board, stupid,

and order by number, though she did loosen up a bit after I’s spent a silly amount on some sensational peanuts and didn’t enforce a “no mobile phones” policy so that was a bonus.

Wisely, we steered off the Mikkeller, as I believe they’ve been cancelled, but unwisely by sticking to Lithuanian craft we ended up with a motley collection of Peated Imperial Stouts, Mango Sours and a TIPA. Anyone who knows what a TIPA is can keep it to themselves. THIS IS NOT A BEER BLOG.

The beer wasn’t cheap, but it was all high quality, but rather put an early end to our evening, despite the encouragement on the Old Town high street.

A high street that was, I guess, “ticking over” at 8pm.

The next night would be very different.

*excluding the post that’s on the curriculum in South Korea, obviously.