Krasniy Vostok Svetloye
Krasny Vostok

Standard brown half-liter bottle with a quite plain red and white label featuring nothing but lettering. Ingredients conform to the purity law. Best before 1/17/04, I opened it on 11/1/03.

Pours clear gold with a thin fizzy head that disappears in no time. The nose is mild and has a fruity essence to it - cherry, perhaps? Definitely an odd aroma for a pale lager, but not utterly unpleasant. The mouth is prickly and medium-bodied. The taste has an odd sweetness matching the nose - where the heck is the fruit essence coming from? There's also a fair amount of malt here, and the finish has a good hoppy bite. The aftertaste retains the bitterness, but also that inexplicable sweet. This beer is a bit strange, but certainly not undrinkable.