Worst beer in Romania? Dracula.
My friends and colleagues, we take this unprecedented break in Belarus news coverage in order to bring you the first in a new series on Beer In Romania. And what better place to start than the bottom, eh? As you will come to learn, anything labelled as Dracula is probably the worst in Romania.
Why? Well, it’s pretty simple really. The kind of entrepreneurs promoting the Dracula brand of tourism in Romania think y’all are a bunch of suckers. Uneducated rednecks. They laugh at people interested in Dracula. It’s a big joke around here. So, they provide crud, slap a Dracula label on it, and expect to cash in on your naivety.
Dracula’s castle in Bran? Disappointing. Sure, it’s an interesting building you’d expect a rich merchant or perhaps medieval governor to live in, but Count Dracula? Give me a break. It’s no castle. And, if you think it qualifies somehow on a technical level (which it most certainly does not), then it is the least impressive castle in Romania.
Dracula Hotel? There’s several around the country. It’s not a franchise, but they do have one thing in common: dirt and fleas. I don’t recommend staying there.
Dracula Tours? Only if you feel like sitting in a rickety bus as it lumbers down the bumpy backroads of nowhere without any air conditioning but with the reassuring scent of a well-used latrine.
Dracula Restaurant? Well, are you seeing a pattern here? I wouldn’t eat there. Although, it is said that Bucureşti has a Dracula Restaurant which is supposed to be pretty good. I’ll seek it out and let you know in the future. In the meantime, take my friendly advice and generally avoid ingesting vittles at your nearest Dracula Restaurant if you like to keep healthy.
So, my friends, what hope can there be for Dracula beer? I will carry the burden of my firsthand, intimate knowledge for the rest of my days so that my suffering will serve as a warning to you. Afterall, someone must be the first to eat the poison berries so the rest of humanity learns the lesson.
The first step in our bold experiment was to forage for provisions at the nearest magazin alimentara on the bad streets of Poarta Schei, Braşov.
Score! We landed a nice catch of some variety. Ursus Pils from Cluj-Napoca, the always refreshing Stella Artois from Belgium, Carlsberg and Tuborg Strong (local parlance) from Denmark, and a half-liter of our main target: Dracula Black Beer, a pigswill concoted in Ungheni.
The Bere Mureş brewery is reknowned for bringing us such cheap beers as the tasteless water called Aro Bere Blonda (the private-label, generic beer sold in megamarts similar to Costco or Sam’s Club) , the distinctly awful Neumarkt (local favorite of alcoholics and the homeless), our newcomer Dracula Black Beer (a dark lager of hitherto unknown quality), and something called Sovata (which I’ve not seen anywhere). Hail to the chimp.
So, after a moment of hestitation, a strategic decision was made to drink Dracula beer first. The theory was no other beer should interfere with our sensitive palate. Additionally, such a choice would allows us to enjoy the other beers in case Dracula turned out to be less than optimal. You understand, my friends, with experience comes wisdom.
Despite the invasion of American culture across the world, there are still some beer purists who believe good beer tastes nicely at room temperature or, perhaps, only slightly chilled a few degrees past room temperature. I suppose it’s like my experiences with coffee, where you learn that good coffee tastes pleasant even after it’s no longer hot whereas junk beans are only passable when scalding hot to disguise the taste. But beer is a different matter.
I fall for no such lies. Purity as it may be, the fact is that beer does taste best when it’s cold whether or not the beer itself is actually good. A horrible beer will reveal itself when cold, although the temperature may aid you in swallowing it. A good beer will soothe you when imbibed near freezing.
A re-freezable glass was needed. I happen to innocently have a modest collection of just such beer steins. Plastic construction with hollow walls filled with a water-based freezing agent. You pop it in the freezer, the liquid solidifies inside, and you can pour your beer into it in order to make the brew ice-cold without watering down the taste from actual ice cubes. Perfect!
So, with a frozen stein at the ready, it was time to open the twist-top plastic bottle of Dracula’s beer.
And…
The first reaction was to not gag. Fighting a mental war with my esophagus muscles was a tough battle, but I managed to keep it down while only breaking a small sweat. Wiping my brow, I betrayed myself with the notion it must be the unusually warm weather which caused a disturbance in the Force.
One cannot quit on a false-negative and so I decided to carry on with yet another swallow. This time I tilted back the cup and took a nice long pour down my gullet, letting the dark brew cascade thoroughly over the bristling tastebuds seeking to dislodge themselves from my tongue so they might die in the acid bath below.
Imagine, if you will, that you’ve been working in the barn all day shoveling large piles of steaming fresh horse or steer manure into a bucket while your perspiration falls in to intermingle with the gaseous stench. As you leave the barn, you sling the content onto a designated pile leaving only a pungent juice and residue clinging to the sides. You saunter over to the nearest spigot of contaminated tap water fed from the nearby sewer sanitation plant and proceed to fill the bucket while adding clumps of mud to the water in order to darken it’s color despite the fact that cat feces is, unbeknownst to you, mixed in the mud from the neighbor’s flea-ridden, mangy, and rabid feline who eats radio active mice from the toxic waste dump. And for flavor, you locate a rotting log covered in fungus, maggots, and termites, and chip off several large chunks which you plop into the bucket. Then, let it set out in the hot sun as it bastes on itself, occassionaly burping up foul gasses from the deep as flies circle overhead like buzzards surveying a killzone.
As night falls, pour yourself a tall frosty stein and tip your head back. Mmmmmm… ahh!
Now, I’ve no doubt that Vlad the Impaler (the historical figure upon which the fictional character Dracula is tangentially and loosely based, in part) was a tough SOB because he took on the Ottoman hordes and make himself a legend for posting their severed heads on spikes as a warning. Yet, I somehow doubt even as hearty a man as he could manage to find any joy in this… well, I can’t properly call it beer, now, can I?
Ever suffering for you, dear reader, I managed to drink about a third before I was gasping for breath and clutching onto the countertops for support. I cast my eyes wildly about searching for any nearby victims upon whom I could foist the beer in the name of group sampling, but it seems most of the neighbors had already caught wind of my folly and had locked themselves indoors.
I trudged on for you. Only for you. And I swear by all that is delusionally claimed to be holy that I nearly made it to the bottom. Really, I kid you not. I was almost finished when I had to throw in the towel and admit my defeat. I estimate I managed to drink about 400mL without hurling, which surely must be a world’s record.
I quickly fought back my laughing compatriot, who gleefully played witness to my fall from glory, and seized the can of Tuborg Royal Export (a 7.2% ABV brew which you must refer to as “Tuborg Strong” when in country) in order to wash away the taste and rush alcohol to my brain in a desperate attempt to blackout the most recent memory. Chug, chug, chug!
By the way, I recommend Tuborg Strong. A fine beer with a good taste and nice punch.
After that, I opted for the Carlsberg to help disguise the persistence of Dracula as it clung to my tongue tenaciously seeking to dominate my consciousness. I was beginning to see results. The crisp taste of Carlsberg was working as was the kick of Tuborg. So, I opted to try the Ursus Pils, which I’ve not had prior, and found it was a pleasant enough, if unremarkable, beer on the order of Miller Genuine Draft.
Okay, MGD is mass-produced junk, but we’re being relative here. Remember, Dracula!
With the Ursus Pils safely consumed free from incident, I slowed down to savor the crispy pleasantry of Stella Artois and contemplate exactly how to relay all this new data to you. The rotten flavor of Dracula lingered for days, however I tried. Psychosomatic, methinks.
Some months later, the passage of time has enabled me to soberly (pun intended) document my Transylvanian beer adventure. I’ll warn you that the dangers of Dracula are real and the bite of his dark beer creates a memory that lives forever…
March 24th, 2006 at 1:49 am
You have my respect for being able to drink so much of that devilish concoction. That showed a lot of courage on your side (I only managed to take a sip of that foul stuff on a dare)… A tip - in order to get rid of the foul taste that stays swith you, eat some really salty telemea cheese. It does wonders, erases any sign of “Dracula” or any other beer. I tend to agree with you, this is the worst “mainstream” beer in Romania. It’s so bad, it’s the stuff used for dares - even worse than another infamous drink - the “Genocid” vodka (the name says it all). Try to avoid any kind of beers packed in plastic juice bottles, all of them are evil. Oh, and as a trivia, they initially tried to make the stuff reddish in color, to allude to the preffered drink of Dracula. It didn’t work. As for me, I don’t like Stella, too bitter and not strong enough for me, I tend to enjoy a fresh cold Silva Dark (strong - a bit stronger than Tuborg Strong, dark, with powerful aroma with a hint of wild berries, the stuff that you either love or hate), or a nice, almost freezing Carlsberg.
PS. In Romania - or at least in Southern Romania, the standard way of serving beer is extremely cold, almost as cold as in the US, so nobody should stare when you ask that your beer be brought colder (some waiters and bartenders will stare however, telling you “it’s impossible” as they probably use 2nd hand 1960’s Soviet refrigerators).
March 24th, 2006 at 2:20 am
Heh. I actually drank an alcoholic drink which had the name “Dracula” inscribed on the bottle, back in 2002. The memories are fuzzy, so I don’t actually recall *what* drink it actually was, but it was some strong stuff. Strong enough to make a computer geek to barf when combined with some cheapo wine, some vodka with fanta ‘fructe de pădure’ (that was bad, too), and some loud scandinavian metal at two o’clock in the morning. This all happened at Olimpiada Naţională de Informatică, the place and time where some of the greatest young minds of Romania met to play cards (’whist’), drink too much, listen to loud metal, visiting cemeteries at night, etc and also, as a minor side-activity, to compete in computing.
I’m getting wildly off-topic, but it’s two AM already, so I’m getting back to the subject, to say that you linked the wrong Ungheni: the one in the Republic of Moldova. There’s another Ungheni in Argeş county, where my granma was born, but the beer was actually made in Ungheni, Mureş County.
–ziedorus
March 24th, 2006 at 2:49 am
jc - thanks, dawg. It is hard to imagine, even now, that I did almost finish. Truely a nasty brew which should be put out of production.
Telemea cheese? Heheh. I’ll have to remember that!
I normally shy away from beer in plastic bottles, but I would be doing my readers a disfavor by avoiding it! Afterall, they can guess how bad it might be, but nay… someone has to eat those poison berries! Asa e? Adevarat.
I have not seen Genocid, but I’ll steer clear of it, based on your advice. There was a great advertising campaign for a vodka in Bulgaria… but the name escapes me.. and my friend down there advised me it was potent nastiness.
On that note, I need to head back to Dean’s pub and find out which palinca it was that I drank that night. Mmm, very yummy by palinca standards.
Yes, American readers, there is a HUGE difference in palinca from source to source. Some taste like an engine degreaser, others taste divine. Caveat emptor!
jc - Stella Artois is not my favorite beer by any stretch of the imagination. I put it on the list of “pretty good beers from Europe” because many of the beers on the Continent are lame. In any event, when all else fails, Stella Artois makes a nice fallback.
Silva Bruna is probably the 2nd best beer in Romania. One could argue that it is the best, but let’s work our way up, shall we? =]
Dracula Rosii? I thought it was vaporware! I heard a rumor about it, but never actually saw it. I wonder when I’ll have the fortitude to try it…
Carlsberg, for me, ranks below Stella Artois, but honestly they are in the same grouping of “pretty good beers from Europe.”
Coldness is the way to go. I know EXACTLY what you are talking about. Nothing is worse on a hot (mildly not cold) day than hitting up the local alimentara for a brewski and those cheap bastards have the refridgerator set 3 degrees below the outside temperature. They are trying to conserve energy, I suppose. But it’s a farce. Surely a lower temperature would be more cost efficient (even given the frequent opening of the door). Bastards, I say. Bastards.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:58 am
ziedorus, a brave fellow, indeed! Sorry for the double post, but I had too many comments in the previous one. Some semblence of separation is in order.
If the bottle says Dracula, that must have been the one. I’ve yet to see another bottle of anything that says Dracula on it (yet).
Fuzziness of memory implies good time, said Confucius.
Oh, lord, not the Norwegian death metal vampyre “I am Satan” and “I will kill you” crowd! Dimmu Borgir? At least, he makes a fun break now and then… but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it talent.
Cheap wine is like an offering to the porcelain gods. Alas, I am sorry to hear of your involuntary contribution.
But how can you complain about Fructe de Padure? It’s the visine that makes me ill.
Now, Bodsza Sokk or Shokata… mmm, what a very different (and delicious) flavor. Though, a little goes a long way, in my book.
It looks like the Olimpiada floats around a bit, so you are still safely semi-anonymous. ;]
Cemetaries? While pretending to hunt for Dracula one evening in Sighisoara, I was amused to find “666″ amongst the many numbered tombstones. I left a 500 lei vechi coin offering, just in case…
Thanks for the correction. I’ve relinked Ungheni to the proper place, I believe. What did you expect? Nebun straine…
March 24th, 2006 at 6:09 am
Actually I highly doubt that Vlad the Impaler ever drank beer, in that era the people of the Balkans drank wine and mead as their two primary beberages and in Turkey it is possible he was exposed to boza a drink consumed in Turkey, Bosnia, and in Crimea by the Crimean Tatars. The point of origin may in fact be the Crimea! Anyway even badly made all of these beverages are far superior to badly made beer!
Now good beer on a hot day is a nice thing, my preference runs to a nice bottle of Sarajevsko, which is always in glass bottles or a can of Sarajevsko. For a dark beer I like either Guiness or a Mexican beer called Modelo Negro, there is Bohemia Negro which is almost indistinguishable from Guiness.
I much prefer wine to beer to be totally honest, but it must be decent wine. It need not be great wine, just decent.
I make my own mead and I’m informed that it is decent mead.
People have asked me when I was planning to ‘go commercial’ but I don’t want to deal with any jack-booted thugs.
March 24th, 2006 at 8:21 am
i think Naroc is the worst
March 24th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Smangat, I’ve not tried Noroc (yet) but have a hard time it imagining it could be worse! I’ll have to assume that we don’t disagree, it’s just that I’ve not drank Noroc and you’ve not drank Dracula, right?
March 24th, 2006 at 10:49 am
yakima_gulag, hmm, perhaps!
Beer was around for over 5,000 years before Vlad was born. However, just before his birth there was a revolution in beer making spreading through the world where beer was becoming mass produced. Considering it was a favorite of armies, I’d say there was a decent chance he might have had a little beer or there.
But I’m no expert. If you say mead and wine was particularly strong in Balkan countries, then I readily surrender and admit I know little about the dietary history of Romania at all. I can certainly see how wine might been very popular here given the Roman proclivity for it and the ability to grow really nice grapes in western Transylvania.
I haven’t even heard anyone talk about mead for the longest time. Is it available in Romania today? (Or neighboring place?) I’d be interested in seeking it out, if you happen to have any pointers on where… let me know!
Nice! You make your own mead, very nice. I’ll have read up on how a person goes about making it. I remember honey was involved.
I’ve been very much thinking about brewing my own beer in Romania. I’ve not done it before, but there is a distinct lack of choice here compared to the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Seattle and Portland have the best beer in the entire world, no doubt about it. Period. End of discussion. And all my time living in Seattle has left me very spoiled, indeed. Of course, I’ve been living here for over 6 months now and have succesfully adjusted my tastes to enjoy what’s availabile around these parts. But it’s not been long enough to make me forget the vastly superior PNW breweries.
I’ll trust your judgement on Sarajevsko when I head over to Bosnia before long. I’ve not had the pleasure of sampling the beers there.
The best eastern European beer I’ve had is Zagorka from Bulgaria. No doubt about it, Zagorka is the only beer in several countries around here that’s actually a pleasure to look forward to… with your lips anticipating that delicious flavor. Mmmm. Romania is working to establish better trade relations with Bulgaria, so they may import Zagorka here. I certainly hope so. Very much. It should be wildly popular.
Modelo Negro is probably the best dark Mexican beer, actually. Nice choice! I must disagree with you with respect to Bohemia Negro… clearly you have proven yourself to have been drunk off your ass to the point of being blind and mute… if you dare to suggest that any Mexican beer came anywhere in the vague vacinity of Guinness. It’s not even close! You’ll have to try a comparison again when you are more sober, eh? =] It’s not possible.
I enjoy wine now and then, but most definitely prefer beer. I often lie to myself, pretending beer is healthier because the average pint has less calories than your average glass of wine. I like my propaganda.
I hear ya on the waffle-print leaving brownshirts. Pity, though, because the mead sounds worth trying. I suppose there’s on alternative way to handle it though.
{{Begin dream sequence: Friendly pub owner buys all materials and supplies. You voluntarily provide the magic and labor. Pub sells mead along with it’s other products. You’re given compensation by a free food tab at the bar or some other method which is agreed upon.}}
March 24th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
Fleas in a Dracula hotel make all the sense; something should suck your blood.
Each beer is best consumed at different temperatures. I learned that from a Stella Artois Belgian who could tell 200 different beers.
I would never taste the allegedly worst beer in the US of A :))
March 24th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Lies! Lies! All beer is best consumed cold. Or, at least, so I will believe for a long time to come anyway.
The USA produces some crap beer, to be sure. If it’s a big name like Budweiser, Coors, Miller Genuine Draft, or such… well, then it’s not very good. But let me assure that it’s not radically different from most European beers like Pilsner Urquell, Turborg Gold, Ursus, DAB, or any number of other generic lagers and ales. A lot of them suck.
I’d say the 3rd best country for beer is Germany. The 2nd best is Belgium. The best? America. But not for the mass-produced, popular sellers. No ma’am. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of top quality small breweries who produce an amazing variety of unbelievably fantastic beer. Really, it would knock your socks off. Visit Portland or Seattle and sample only local companies. You’ll find it hard to come back home…
FWIW, I should not admit that I’ve had far more than 200 varieties of beer in my day. Shhh… it’s our secret.
March 28th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
lol… i was about to flame mgd, but i see you did already… damnit!! over here, when i don’t feel like a headache from hell, i stick with stella…
March 28th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Have no fear! If we get together in Cluj soon, I’ll most likely remember to introduce you to the wonders of Dracula’s finest… and see if you can conquer the beast!
March 31st, 2006 at 11:59 am
Worst beer in Romania is Timisoreana (I haven’t trid Dracula, it has to be said). Best is Silva dark and Ciuc (maybe a bit of local bias, but I’ve done a lot of tsting and it just beats Ursus)
(All Romanian beer bar some of the very little known breweries is foreign owned - the brewery in Ciuc for example is a Heineken run opertaiuon for example, and ursus is brewed by a combination of Miller (US) and SAB (South Africa)
March 31st, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Silva Dark is a great beer, no doubt. Cuic is quite okay, but I’d put it on par (more or less) with Ursus, Timisoareana, Silva, or similar. The Timi beer is perhaps a little sweeter.
Good point about the foreign brewery acquisitions. Slowly but surely it will have an impact on the local market. (Hint, hint - future review is forthcoming.)
April 1st, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Here you go: http://szekely.blogspot.com/2005/06/beer.html
Compare yours with mine :-)
March 27th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Stupid assholes! u know a shit about beer! all europen brands which are bottled in Romania are full of chimical shit…trust me y know. Y also seen the Dracula’s brewery and y must say that all the ingredients are naturaly…the only problem is that they don’t keep the beer enuogh for the fermentation process and sell it quickly. y do not say that the dracula beer is better but almost is naturally. if u want to taste a really awesome beer try Leffe! is really good. or try Paulaner, Franziskaner …not that shit that is called tuborg or carlsberg…even ursus premium pils beats them. see u
March 27th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Clearly you are a gentleman and a scholar. I’m sure everyone is deeply in gratitude for the profound intellectual contribution you’ve made to our topic. Thanks so much for your witty insights based on your vast experience.