Yaroslavskoye Svetloye
Afanasy

I was prepared for a really bad Soviet beer with this one. Very pale green half liter bottle with a non-descript white, yellow and green label featuring nothing fancier than a full stein of beer. The liquid inside looked like swamp water, complete with big sulfurous bubbles on the surface. Uh-oh. Then, the first surprise: no sugar, no rice, just purity law ingredients. Fine, that doesn't mean much. Bottled on 11/11/03, I opened it on 11/25/03.

Pours a clear light straw yellow under a white head. Second surprise: the head was firm, and did NOT disappear before I put the bottle down. It stuck around through most of the drinking experience, and even left some lace. The nose? Another surprise: rather than rancid sour, it was light and filled with flowery hops. The mouth didn't make me pucker, either - light and prickly. Taste? Sublime. Smooth and mild at first, but followed immediately by a whole lot of hops. Not HopDevil hops, mind you, but the bittering units must be pushing thirty, which is a lot in this neck of the woods. And they weren't metallic, fingernails-on-the-chalkboard hops either. Flowery and smooth, this is the kind of bitter you want in a pilsner. The first swallow immediately reminded me of some of the better pilsners from the Rhineland. This is one great beer! Never judge a book by its cover.

Note to Tinkoff's: Shame on you! At 11 rubles (US$0.35) per half-liter, this beer is not only 1/4 the price of your platinum pilsner, but it is also a vastly superior product. You do not need to be expensive to be good.