Illustration by Drew Shannon
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I broke up with craft beer a long time ago – back when small-brand breweries went from niche and interesting to eye-rollingly ubiquitous. Of all places, I didn’t think I’d run into my beverage-ex in Kazakhstan. I assumed either big conglomerate brands would still dominate the former Soviet state or there’d be no beer at all. Finding a pint in some parts of the Islamic world can lead even the most well-travelled tourist on a fruitless quest. It turns out, I was dead wrong.
My impromptu evening of bar-hopping around Almaty, the country’s largest city, started after a long day of trekking the Turgen gorge. On the way back to my hotel, I noticed Privychki Bar. I pushed open the front door to find a gaggle of young Kazakhs perched on vintage armchairs, sipping cloudy pints. Feeling deeply middle-aged in a lame sweatshirt and Costco leggings, I walked up to the bar. The ultrahip barkeep greeted me – a teeny-tiny Toronto Maple Leafs pin fastened to his baseball hat.
As a Torontonian, I felt I had a workable small-talk angle. “You like the Leafs?”
“Da,” he responded sheepishly. But the language divide prevented further discussion.
I ordered a pint of “Sith,” Raccoon Brewing’s maple and blackcurrant sour. The beer’s off-putting brown-red colour gave me pause, but it was deliciously fruity without being overbearing. A perfect start.
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After knocking back my last mouthful, I slapped a few thousand tenge on the bar and asked the guy sitting next to me where I should go next (my go-to bar-hopping move). A few lost-in-translation fails later, I was on my way.
Amber Bar had all the hallmarks of a vapid, C-suite-approved drinking establishment: an entirely ignorable logo, recently outdated décor and a fully functioning set of light bulbs. I was mumble-cursing the stranger who suggested the place when the bartender asked,
“You want Kazakh beer?”
“Sure.”
“We have Sigma. Kazakh brewery.”
The corporate vibe was starting to make sense. Sigma Braü is a regional operation offering dozens of styles of beer. My new friend pulled three of the most popular cans out of the beer fridge and placed them on the bar in front of me. Each one, brightly coloured, featured a different cartoon illustration of a hand gesture.
“Do these hand gestures mean something in Kazakh?” I asked, hoping to learn some local idiosyncrasies. He blushed. Panic erupted on his face. Then I pieced it together – each gesture referenced a manual sexual stimulation technique.
“Ah! I get it!” I laughed. Sigma wasn’t as corporate as I thought.
“Gimme the fist,” I said, pointing to the pink can labelled Raspberry and Lychee Sour Ale. “Fist, fist, fist,” he repeated quietly to himself as he poured my beer into a glass, turning this awkward encounter into an ESL opportunity.
Made in a smoothie style, the beer felt oddly nourishing, hearty but not heavy. With my pint in front of me, I Googled it for some additional info. The Sigma site offered this tasting note: “Aromatic notes of fresh raspberries and exotic lychee, creating an exquisite ballet of taste ready to dazzle your jabou into the blushes.”
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Although I had many questions, I wasn’t going to ask any more. It was time to move on. I had one more stop in me, so I got in a cab and headed in the direction of Napitki: The Bar.
I rested my sensible walking shoe on the bar’s foot rail next to an assembly line of Doc Martens and Air Maxes. My perimenopausal je ne sais quoi was ruining the defiant electro-punk-vibe Napitki was going for. The barkeep flipped his cool-guy hair and proceeded to make suggestions.
“Try this. It’s Russian,” he pointed to a Cyrillic-covered can in the fridge.
“I don’t want Russian beer.”
“You don’t like Russians?”
“I just want something local.”
“I am Russian and I think you should try this,” he said, signalling the end of the negotiation I had clearly lost. I begrudgingly accepted the beer.
He poured a brick red, semi-translucent liquid from 4Brewers.
“Oh. What is that?” I asked, failing to hide my disgust.
“Tomato beer. With coriander and basil!”
Not wanting to incite any geopolitical conflicts, I shut up and drank.
Huh. It was oddly refreshing. With a hint of spiciness. I probably wouldn’t order it again, but was happy to have tried it.
As I finished up, a shot glass filled with a cream liqueur was put in front of me. My friend, giving me the same “there’s no room for negotiation here” look, raised his glass and smiled,
“Nazdarovya!”
After the shot, I called it a night. As I waited for my cab, the Napitki crowd – a mishmash of genders, languages and styles – spilled onto the sidewalk.
I crawled into the back of a Lada and gave the driver my hotel address. As we meandered through Almaty’s leafy streets, my stomach tried to convince the tomato-beer and the cream liqueur to reconcile their differences. It felt like butterflies. I was falling for craft beer all over again.
Krista Raspor lives in Toronto.