It's 10am on a January morning and the beer shack near Akademicheskaya is already plying its trade.

It's like a small kiosk that sells beer not cigarettes and it's not on a Metro station. A pint of watery, foaming, nondescript "beer" in a chipped glass will set you back 600 roubles. Prices have gone up. When it opened it was only 300.

Its taste (and the fact that it is normally consumed on the street in sub-zero temperatures) make for guzzling rather than savouring, but it is so patently low on alcohol that this doesn't seem to matter.

The hygiene aspect of a chipped glass rinsed in St Petersburg tap water might bother you until you learn that, at the indoor shack opposite the Metro, depending on your luck, you might get your beer served in a jam-jar instead of a glass.

Other shacks and tents at other metros even claim to sell Tverskoe or Baltika on tap, for prices from 700 to 1,600 roubles -- depending on alleged quality and quantity of the beer. How much of the actual brand-name beer comes out of the tap and into your receptacle is anybody's guess.

For those who might feel their stomachs unequal to the struggle in such unsalubrious joints, the next step up in the Russian beer experience is bottled beer, sold at Metros and on trains.

By far the most popular bottled beer is the local brew, Baltika brewed in Petersburg since 1991. They may be young in brewing terms but they've learned fast and there have been some noticeable improvements in taste over the last 12 months.

In typical Russian fashion, Baltikas are numbered as well as named. A further Russian twist is that the "Classic" and "Original" Baltikas are numbers 3 and 4, rather than 1 and 2.

But the ultimate Russian feature of Baltika's history has been the ongoing mystery concerning numbers 5 and 6.

Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 have been around as long as Baltika it seems; the "Export" No 7 soon followed. But for the whole of 1994, serious Russian beer fanciers wondered where the hell Baltika 5 and 6 were!

The mystery ranked up there with those surrounding the fate of the Lenin statue that used to be at Moskovsky Vokzal, the disappearance of the armoured vehicle in the yard of the museum of Lenin and the saga of the Yubileiny Palace ice-rink in the Goodwill Games.

Well, the suspense is half over. Baltika 6 arrived on the St Petersburg scene in the week before Christmas -- and there was much rejoicing, and imbibing, and rejoicing. Baltika 6 (Porter) is a dark, ruby beer. It marauds through the intestines, taking no prisoners. Similar to the English Bitter/Stout mix, it is less watery than other Baltikas and full of flavor.

It is easier to drink from the bottle than the others as it foams less and is surprisingly palatable for such a lethal brew.

It was the toast of our Christmas celebrations, accounting for 20 out of a 100 bottles of Baltika products.

For those of you out there yet to try the other numbers in the as-yet-still-uncompleted Baltika series, here's a quick rundown.

No 1 (green label) is "light." The weakest, cheapest and least popular. It has a dry, happy flavor and is a good choice for those moments when the stomach is more sensitive than usual.

The No 2, special beer, (red label) is being seen a bit more often just now. I suppose January is a special time of the year.

Certainly most of those whom I know that have tried it would perhaps prefer to call it "different" rather than special.

American readers could compare it to a light malt liquor. For the English reader, a slightly fruity pale ale might be the best analogy.

No 3 Classic (blue label) and No 4 Original (black) are the really big guns of the Baltika range and the most commonly available.

No 3 is a likeable, strongish beer, similar to a French lager.

Baltika's No 4 is a dark, heady beer which does not suffer fools gladly. It should be approached with caution.

It rarely is however, usually being approached with gusto. Most Baltika drinkers swear by No 4; they swear at Nos 1 and 2.

No 7 is "Export" (small bottle, big price). One feels the brewery has really got its act together on this one: even the bottles are all the same color. Inside is a run-of-the-mill lager, similar to a Heineken but blander.

Other beers like Rizhskoye (from Riga) -- an eclectic taste -- and Tverskoye Temnoye -- another stab in the dark on the brown ale/malt liquor theme -- make intermittent and localized appearances on the market, as do the vastly inferior Moscow beers.

These beers are sometimes sold from kiosks and sometimes from crate stacks at which you will see two prices -- it is cheaper by 80 roubles to drink -- na meste -- (on the spot) than to take them -- s soboi -- (with you) because there is a deposit on the bottles.

You will often see old and desperate people with bags stuffed full of these bottles going to trade them for an income supplement.

Now you know what I think about Petersburg beers why not have a drop or two yourself -- you have nothing to lose but the following morning.