to 'translations' : you said that the Russian beer industry was destroyed during the ссср .. was beer a popular drink in Russia before then?

I quite like stariy melnik as well .. it's kind of a bog standard beer. Various Baltika numbers are OK too, and Klinskoye and Sibirskii Korona or whatever it's called. But Braumeister, you seem to be a connoisseur .. I don't know any really special local beers, although I'm sure they exist. If I want to treat myself, I usually drink Stella Artois
BTW on Czech Budweiser, I think it was a totally different company, and some American company kind of 'stole' the name or something. I read about it once. Certainly, Czech Budweiser is much more of a 'real' beer than the American one. I also particularly like Czech Staropramen, which you can sometimes get here.