Snow Cougar
Krasny Vostok

Picked this beer up at BlueMax at the clerks reccomendation. Its was only $1 so I figured what the heck!

A - Pours out a nice clear golden hue typical of macros. The head was nice and soapy.

S- Is that soap? I could detect hints of malt and citrus with a mild sour hop character.

T - Tastes similar to most macro pilsners with little to no quality malt or hop character.

Overall - Snow Cougar is a russian brew that likely wanted to attract European macro beer drinkers. There really is nothing great here. I enjoy sampling beers from all over the world but this one offers up nothing unique.

A: Pours a nice golden color, virtually no head (Was mine old? Other people talk about decent head), moderate carbonation visible. Subsequently minor lacing and no noticeable fingering.

S: Smells like a very genuine pale lager, notes of citrus and possibly cinnamon. Strong wheat and bread, somewhat sweet.

T: Slightly bitter up front, becomes sweet as it warms on the tongue. Very strong grain, not much hops. Slightly harsh carbonation.

M: Light body, easy to drink, slightly dry (reminds me of a chardonnay oddly enough), nothing offensive in the taste. Can hardly notice the high ABV. Not my favorite lager for sure, but it's definitely an easy drink for someone who wants to keep a variety of lagers on hand. A good choice for someone who doesn't like extremely hoppy pale lagers or just wants to have something different.

Presentation - poured cold from a 16.9 oz brown bottle
A - A dish soap white head caps this clear golden lager. The head is about 2 fingers and leaves scattered lace formations.

S - Sweet and lightly malt scented with a wisp of hops

M - Moderately carbonated, sugary, nutty with a slightly creamy finish.

T - A bit of a pilsner taste at first: smooth, gentle graininess, slightly nutty and then a fuller maltier strong lager taste emerges. A bit of alcohol in the taste - I am tasting same of the concentrated adjunct sugars. A slightly fruity taste ( I almost pick up the grape taste mentioned earlier, strangely). The finish is a bit sweet and creamy, but the warmth of the 7.0% comes on more noticeably mid-bottle with more grainy and dry flavors.

D - This is not a style I might drink regularly, but regardless it is not blended very well. It changes gears quickly and is hard to stay with. The adjunct flavors remain long after you finish. I would probably quit with one sampling.

Color is typically light amber, with a thick but not rich head. Smell is strong and decidedly beery. Taste is hale and somewhat hoppy, but not complex; and the texture is very smooth. Bitterness tends to linger. This is not an outstanding brew, but it is worth a try.

Bright daffodil yellow with more than enough bubbles to give the beer a lively look. All that carbonation creates a frothy cap the color of a snow cougar's coat. A somewhat dirty one, that is. The head hangs around for quite a while and leaves no more than a few stray splotches of lace.

The nose is as expected. To be more specific, the beer smells like a stronger version of a Euro pale lager; which is what it is. To be even more specific, it smells like untoasted grain stewing in grain alcohol. I'm surprised, and thankful, that it isn't more aromatic.

Is it just me or do American malt liquors, as a rule, kick the asses of Euro strong lagers every day of the week and twice on Sunday? I find most of the former to be drinkable and most of the latter to be pretty damn close to undrinkable. This one is borderline at best.

There's no power, no spark, no personality, nothing to grab and hold the attention of my taste buds for as long as they're in contact with the beer, much less between mouthfuls. The flavor profile, such as it is, consists of stale, moderately sweet grain and a splash of lower shelf vodka. This stuff will be a chore to finish.

The mouthfeel is thinner than the mouthfeel on a 7% beer should ever be. There's much less carbonation remaining than I would have thought. The mouth party, never that lively to begin with, is in serious danger of dying altogether.

I'm amused that a brewery whose lineup consists of beers called Checkskiy Standant Klassicheskoye and Krasny Voskok Zhigulevskoe would produce one called... Snow Cougar. They must have been attempting to appeal to Brits and Americans. Well this American is definitely not impressed with this unappealing Euro strong lager. Avoid like the plague.

A golden lager that does not produce much head to speak of. This beer does not have a very characteristic smell, either, but I suppose that is expected with lagers.

Snow Cougar tastes fresh and clean with a small bit of Eastern European aftertaste (not a bad thing to me).

Snow Cougar's mouthfeel is a bit thin.

I give Snow Cougar a better than average score for drinkability because I can see myself having more than one or two. The relatively low price for Eurppean strong lager helps too.

Pours clear golden yellow, medium sized head with some lacing.
Smells of wet grains with an odd sweetness.
Strong taste of alcohol throughout, sweet maltiness and perhaps due to age (?) I get an unpleasant tinny effect in the aftertaste. A flavor I expect of cheap canned beers, but this cougar was kept in a bottle.
It is a strong beer but this alone is not enough to carry it. If I ever find myself in Russia I will try it again, but I cannot suggest it for anyone else.

This poured to a nice solid gold color with a small ring of head. There's no lace.

The smell is of honey and pepper. Not a great combination. The taste is dominated by cheap grains and finishes with more pepper flavor. The mouthfeel is somewhat sharp. Drinkability is reasonable for the strength, but it's not very appealing.

Clear yellow color, 1/4" head, quick to diminish...

Aroma is light, creamy, smoothalicious, lemony, slightly tart, mild hops, barest malt...grainy, and largely empty...but not terrible....

Taste: here we go...light and fruity, mild and meek, just a little tart and tangy, somewhat malty sweet...inoffensive...but unexceptional. This isn't a horrible beer by any estimation, but it's not worth anyone's attention, either.

Snow Cougar, eh? Pride of Russia? Hmmm...
Very light body, small reward from flavor, lightly citric finish, blahbaddy-blah, blah, blah...

Skip it, not good, nothing to see here...move along...

Appears much like many other euro lagers, small white head, clear light gold body. Smell is also pretty status quo, alcohol, cereal grain, and slight grassiness. Taste is pretty good, however, alcohol is dominant, but there are also sweet malty flavors, that finishes with surprisingly strong hops kick. Mouthfeel is strong, warm while going down. Pretty good, a step above many ESL's.

Imported by AIKO LLC, Mount Pleasant, SC 29464. (www.aikollc.com)
16.9 oz brown bottle.

This European style, pale strong lager pours a crystal-clear golden body beneath a full head of bright-white foam that holds fairly well and keeps a thin surface covering throughout the entire glass. Unfortunately, it leaves very little more than a few spots of lace.

The nose is candyish sweet, like a dry, hard fruit candy (grape PEZ?); and some alcohol becomes clear once it warms a bit.

In the mouth, it's medium-bodied with a lightly zesty, effervescent carbonation.

The flavor is very much as the nose suggests with an odd, grape-like fruitiness; a hint of husky graininess; a harsh, abrasive bitterness (although it's not actually that bitter); and some leafy hops. As it warms the alcohol becomes apparent as well. It finishes with a dollop of fruitiness that erodes to reveal some astringency and a metallic note that's not particularily pleasant, followed by a long-lingering bitterness. The astringency leaves it 'mouth-coating', and the lingering bitterness becomes excessive.

There has to be alot of adjunct in this beer as it's taste doesn't really have any malt character; and it seems to suffer from fermentation problems as well, which are probably bolstered by that.

Still, as far as Russian beers go, it's not really that bad, but that's not saying much.... laughs... although their overall quality has been improving greatly as of late. I'd pass on this one.