The Baltika Index - BI

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The Baltika Index - BI

Definition : the price at which 500ml of locally produced beer of 5%!a(MISSING)bv strength can be purchased from a shop or hostel in a given location, expressed as a decimal fraction of the price of 500ml of Baltika 3 lager as purchased from the mini-bar in room 418 of the Hotel Vladamir, Vladamir, Russia in June 2009 (50 rubles or approx £1)


I have this theory that the relative expense of town can pretty much be determined by looking at the price of a pint of lager, that's certainly been my experience in the UK anyway. After all, the post work pint/half litre of lager is a fairly common tipple amongst, for example, most "western" societies (I use the term loosely 😊 ).

Hence, demand and supply (assuming there's a local producer) for beer related products must be fairly similar across countries with similar social norms and price must be determined by purchasing power alone etc etc (okay, I stop trying to intellectualise what is essentially an excuse for me to drink my way around the globe).

But does this theory stand up to global scrutiny?

When staying in the Hotel Vladamir I was pleasantly surprised to find that 500ml of Baltika 3 lager (4.8%!a(MISSING)bv) cost a mere 50 rubles from the mini-bar (yes, we were staying in hotel, it had been a long day), and rather conveniently 50 rubles equated to approximately £1 at the time.

We had, unwittingly, stumbled across a "standard" by which all other beer purchases could be measured, and I have been testing the theory rigorously ever since, purchasing locally produced beers (mainly Baltika in Russia, Arvaikheer in Mongolia and Tsing Tao, Hans and Beijing in China) in a variety of towns in each country. In short, the lower the index number, the lower the cost of beer and the lower the expense of the town.

Please be assured that substantial repeat testing has taking place to ensure the validity of results.

Clearly the strength and volume of the beer purchased can affect price, hence the aim in to test beers in the 500-600ml volume and 4.5 to 5.5%!s(MISSING)trength range.

The index may also be skewed when "bulk" volumes are purchased - you can, for example, buy 1 litre of Baltika 3 in a can (a CAN!!!!) for RUB 35 in Yekaterinburg, giving a misleadingly low index of about 0.38 ish (ie. for a tenner you could easily drink yourself into some serious trouble / fun).

Look out for BI numbers in future blogs. For the record, here are some example BIs that we have stumbled upon / stumbled over in the past 6 weeks.......

Russia
Vladamir - 1.00 (the "standard")
Yekaterinburg - 0.70
Listvyanka - 0.76
Irkutsk - 0.50

Mongolia
Ulan Bator - 0.76
A "shop" in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere - 0.85

China
Beijing - 1.50 in hostel (Beijing draft), 0.32 in the local supermarket (Tsing Tao) - shop wisely travellers, shop wisely
Chengdu - 0.60
Yangshuo - 0.80


Right, I'm off to see if we can get that Yangshuo index down by a couple of percentage points, I wouldn't want to misrepresent the town after all........

Graham

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