Keeer

Nope, that's not a typo: the name is Keeer with three e's. The waitress told us it refers to "kirat," Russian slang for "to drink heavily." Why they chose to spell the name in Latin (not Cyrillic) letters and with the odd three e's was beyond her pay grade. Whatever.

Nice place just north of the center of Yekaterinburg (called Sverdlovsk in Soviet times, a formerly closed city of 1.5 million just east of the Ural mountains - where the Czar's family was killed in 1918 or so), on a side street just a few blocks from Russia's first and only war memorial to honor the dead of the Afghan and Chechen wars. It is located in the basement below (and associated with) a disco, but the word "brewery" (well, "pivovariya" actually) is prominently displayed on the neon sign by the door. Lots of light colored wood and a few leftover Christmas/New Year's decorations on January 18. There are enough four and six seat tables to house about 80 people. It was pretty empty on a Tuesday night. A small bar with five stools sits at the far end of the room, with an elevated platform on the right, behind which is a small private room with two more tables. The music was eclectic. We started the evening with a CD of unknown (to us anyway) Barry White tunes, then moved towards Simply Red and more modern fare, mostly in English.

Two of their own beers on tap - pale and dark. They also had seven other taps with usual suspect macros like Harp, Murphy's, Paulaner. Corona was available in bottles. The home beers came in unmarked mugs, but were fresh and well served. Service was prompt and helpful. The food ranged from fine to very good. Sure, you could go to the new Tinkoff's chain brewery in town, but for local flavor, this is the place.