St Petersburg (Санкт-Петербург):
Maximilian Brauhaus
Tuesday 23rd July 2013
Bob Thompson
A German-style beer hall and brewery located in a modern shopping arcade. Well, that is a standard model found all over Russia and the Maximilian Brauhaus is no exception to that concept.
Again its name is signed in the Latin alphabet so there is no Russian transliteration. It is to be found to the north of the city in the Primorskiy district.
I visited it after going to Nabeerezhnaya and I transferred between the two pubs using the massive tram network. This was once the largest in the world, but with opening of new metro stations some routes have closed, and that accolade now belongs to Melbourne, Australia.
The brew-pub restaurant is named after Maximilian, Archduke of Tyrol, once Holy Roman Emperor, and most importantly a patron saint of brewers and brewing.
The interior entrance from the Merkuriy shopping complex is rather unprepossessing but once inside it opens up to reveal a large beer hall on two floors the can seat around 500 customers. There is also an outside terrace that can take a further 90 drinkers.
I found the bar on the left of the entrance and plonked myself on to a stool. I noticed the very shiny brewery was in a sort of extension of the bar and I was lucky today, as it was in use. There were two brewers checking the brew and the aromas wafted around the room.
I ordered a light beer on the basis that every brewery has one. The reason for this was that I couldn't find a menu. It was actually a good choice and I enjoyed it.
I then discovered that they do three regular beers and I list them below with their official descriptions:
Lager-Light: Maxbier Lager brewed from barley malt, Munich on the traditional method of double decoction. This gives the beer its distinctive saturation and rich full flavour. The density of 12.0%, 5.0% alcohol content.
Lager-Dark: Maxbier Dark prepared from a mixture of four types of barley malt, which gives it a caramel flavour with a slight bitterness from the roasted malt. Dark Maximilian is the strong beer brand, thanks to the high concentration of the wort. 13.5% density, alcohol content of 5.6%.
Weizen-Wheat: For Maxbier Weizen used barley malt and special top-fermenting yeast, which give the beer a specific aroma and taste. This yeast does not settle like a light beer, so sometimes referred to as white wheat beer. The density of 13.0%, 4.8% alcohol content.
On a blackboard there was mention of Maxkriek which is obviously a cherry beer, so I am assuming that there is always a seasonal beer.
The cuisine is Austrian / Bavarian and is supposedly very good. There is live music on every Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.
Important Information:
Maximilian Brauhaus, ulica Savushkina 141, Sankt Peterburg. Tel: 812 938 8893
Maximilian Brauhaus Улица Савушкина, Санкт-Петербург
Open: Sunday and Monday 12.00-24.00; Tuesday to Thursday 12.00-02.00;
Friday and Saturday 12.00-04.00
The pub is served by two tram routes, the 19 and 48 and the stop to alight at is: Begovaya/Беговая. This is two stops before the end of the line. The 19 is the most useful as it connects directly with Staraya Derevnya/СтараяДеревня metro station, which is the penultimate stop on line 5 (purple), north of the city.
Travel on the tram network is easy as they all have conductors and you pay them the fare which was 25 rubles at the time of writing.