Isetskoye
Isetskiy Pivobyezalkogolniy Zavod

This brew comes from a small brewery on the road in from the airport. It comes in a standard brown half liter bottle with a red and brown label featuring a picture of the brewery (an unfortunate shot taken through the heavy iron gate at very plain cement buildings - looks a bit too much like a concentration camp). The name of the beer and brewery refers to the Iset river that flows through Yekaterinburg. Ingredients include rice, sugar and ascorbic acid. Best before 3/10/05, I opened it on 1/22/05.

Pours clear gold under a one finger white head that stays a bit and leaves a few drops of lace. The nose is crisp and semi-sweet, with some flowery hops and bready malt. The mouth is very prickly and fairly light. The opening taste is clean, of bread and slightly sweet fruit. The label identifies the opening as wine-like, and there is a bit of grape in there somewhere. There is a good flowery hops presence lending a touch of bitterness short of a bit but enough to generate a dry finish. The barley is just right - neither moldy nor sour, crisp and fresh. This beer is a nice effort worth seeking out - and I had to: this brewery's products were hard to find even in Yekaterinburg itself.