IVAN BILIBIN, best known for his beautiful illustrations of Russian fairy tales, was a member of the World of Art, a cosmopolitan group of St. Petersburg artists and philosophers centered around Sergei Diaghilev in the late nineteenth century. Bilibin also turned his talents to commercial purpose, as in this advertisement for New Bavaria beer. Here, as in much of his work, the artist was drawn to the idealized, highly ornamental style of Muscovy, the period in the late Middle Ages when Moscow was ascendant.
In this 1903 advertisement, Bilibin has stylized his letters to resemble those on medieval manuscripts. His division of the poster into two frames recalls the folk-art form of the lubok, whose informative text appeared below a central image. After winning high honors at the famous Nizhny Novgorod Fair in 1896,* New Bavaria beer was allowed to display the imperial double-headed eagle, which Bilibin has placed prominently in a cartouche at the poster’s center. Bilibin’s love of the Muscovite style elicits some irony when he casts the German-associated beer as deeply Russian. The barrel is surrounded by a king and boyars in long beards and brocaded caftans; the turreted walls of a medieval kremlin and Viking-style ships on the sea complete the picture of old Russia. Could this be a play on the so-called nemetskaya sloboda, the German quarter, where the rowdiest drinking in Moscow was said to occur (at least according to Adam Olearius, the German scholar who visited Moscow in the seventeenth century)?
Some medieval Russians considered hops to be the work of the devil, so great was the intoxication they produced (the word for hops, xmel, lies at the root of pokhmelye, or “hangover”). But Peter the Great’s love for beer was so strong that in 1718 he issued an ukaz to hospitals and the navy to brew beer “in the Dutch manner” as a restorative drink.
In 1795 Catherine the Great opened Russia’s first brewery, and within two hundred years St. Petersburg had become the beer capital of Russia, boasting more than one thousand breweries. Visits to beer gardens — the breweries’ outdoor pavilions — were a popular summer pastime.
The New Bavaria brewery was established in 1886. It produced beer — both light Pilsen style and dark, as well as kvas, mead (the honey-based wine long favored by Russians), mineral waters, soft drinks, porter, vinegar, and even cattle feed from the used mash. Its beer was prestigious enough to be sold at Moscow’s famous Yeliseyev Grocery, and it won a gold medal in Paris at a 1900 exposition.
In 1909, in a nostalgic nod to the past, the company renamed the beer Staraya Bavaria (Old Bavaria). When prohibition was instituted, during World War I, the brewery saw hard times; then, with the nationalization of all private companies following the Revolution, the excellent Novaya/Staraya Bavaria ceased to be. To reflect the new political order, the brewery was renamed Krasnaya Bavaria (Red Bavaria) — also the name of a Leningrad tavern immortalized in a phantasmagoric poem by Nikolai Zabolotsky. Though ubiquitous during Soviet times, Red Bavaria was a pallid, rather sour brew. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the company recreated itself once more; its beer is now called simply Bavaria.
This June, the ruins of New Bavaria’s original nineteenth-century malt house were scheduled to be auctioned off, at an asking price of $4.6 million. Even without this piece of history, you can get a taste of Russian brewing by visiting the beer museum at St. Petersburg’s Stepan Razin Brewery:
razin.ru/beermuseum.html
Beer calls for savory snacks. These canapés are quick to prepare and make a tasty accompaniment to the foamy brew.
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 1 small onion, minced 1 tin (3 3/4 oz.) sardines 1/2 small apple, cored and grated, (approximately 1/4 cup) 1 tablespoon minced parsley Salt, freshly ground black pepper to taste Black bread
Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a small skillet and sauté the onion for 3 to 4 minutes, until golden. Set aside to cool.
In a small bowl, cream the remaining 6 tablespoons of butter, then stir in the cooled onions. Mash the sardines with a fork and stir them into the butter. Add the grated apple and parsley.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
To serve, spread the butter thinly on black bread.
Makes 2 dozen canapés.
Adapted from the cookbook, A Taste of Russia
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