Xirdalan

The Low Down:
28 December 2018, Baku. Can I first say that Azerbaijanis are obsessed with Christmas? We arrived the week after and they were still all in. For a primarily Muslim country, it’s kind of a trip.

It’s also stunningly beautiful. I didn’t know what to expect when we booked the Caucasus, other than “don’t travel directly between Azerbaijan and Armenia”. But Gobustan and the north were, without doubt, among the most beautiful places I have ever seen in winter.

We saw the eternal flames of the Zoroastrians. We met the cats of the Old Town. And then I drank this beer. And it was fine.

Price: 7/10
Cheap enough for me, as was all of Azerbaijan. Their oil subsidises a lot, I believe.

Taste: 6/10
Fine, verging on good. Better than all the Euro lager the bars were selling to the expats out here on oil jobs.

Refreshment: 5/10
It drops off a bit here, but that’s not really the beer’s fault: it was 2 degrees in town most evenings. The beer itself was sufficient.

Alcohol Content: 7/10
4.8%. Super respectable for the size of bottle they serve it in.

Flavour: 4/10
They have cool mint drinks and weird cherry tisanes and all sorts, and I would have loved a beer that tasted like any of that. This did not. It wasn’t outright offensive, but it was never going to win awards.

Total: 29/50

Conclusion: our driver and guide to Gobustan put five sugars in his black tea, which we then had with something called cherry murabba. I’d expected to find chechil on this trip and was left wanting. This beer would have fared better accompanied by cherries and cheese.