Kalnapilis Kaledinis - Lithuanian Christmas beer

[ebbelwoi]

About 20 years ago, I spent the holidays in Lithuania. It was awfully chilly, but the local beer kept me warm. I'm mostly a lager guy, but I tried a bottle of Christmas beer, and as I recall, it was quite good. It was dark and strong. I think it had a white label with red and green printing, and the name was probably something like "Kaledinis". If I had to guess, I'd say it was a Kalnapilis beer, but I recall trying a few of the Utenos varieties as well.

I've tried Googling, and haven't come up with much, and I don't imagine many people would be familiar with it. But just to hazard a guess, would it likely have been a Baltic porter?

Whoa... I just gave it one more shot on Google, and I found it!

I live in Japan now, so I don't think I'd be able to find this particular beer, but would like to either buy a bottle or two of a similar beer, maybe even brew a batch. I realize it's not much to go on, but can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[Pappers_]

Completely unfamiliar with it, it would be unusual for a Baltic Porter to be used as the base style for a spiced beer, but it is certainly possible.

My advice is to go easy on the spices - a common mistake homebrewers make is to overspice their winter warmer.

We've got a lot of Winter Seasonal Beers in the HBT recipe database. Open the Specialty beer sub forum, then use the pull down menu to search for Winter Seasonal recipes. Or click here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...orical-other-homebrew-recip.76/?prefix_id=161

 

[ebbelwoi]

Thanks for the reply. I came across these labels from Utenos, the other major brewery in Lithuania. They seem to use a porter for their Christmas beer.

 

[JohnSand]

Very interesting. I have a Christmas beer in tap now, a Gordon Strong recipe. My grandfather came from Lithuania. Though we never met, I'm still 1/4 Lithuanian. If you come up with a recipe, please post it.