Krasny Vostok Zhigulevskoe
Krasny Vostok

Cerveza dorada con un pequeño cordón espumoso de poca retención. Cuerpo ligero y carbonatación media. Aroma a malta y granos. En boca es ligeramente dulce pero muy plana.

 

 

Appearance is of pale yellow gold with a thin head and nill lace. Smell of sweet of light honey, adjuncts and light hop. taste has a sweet metallic honey flavor with rice as well as other adjuncts leaving an off lager aftertaste. Mouthfeel is light with fair body having a good spike of carbonation that helps it go down. Always interesting trying these Estern European beers be it good or not so.

Aroma is typical of a pale lager, crisp and malty, nothing special - but at least it is strong and not watery. It pours with a nice thick white head, but the wan straw yellow is not inspiring - nor are all the little goobers I saw floating in the bottle. Flavor is flat and weak so it barely tastes like beer, or even a macro-brew. Texture lacks even a nice beery fizz, and leaves a barely noticeable malty aftertaste. Maybe this bottle was from a bum batch.

Picture of a viking ship on the bottle--good start.

Pours clear gold (my mom said it looks like urine) with a decent head that quickly disperses. Aroma is very faint with hints of wheat and honey.

Tastes like apples and ginger. Very sugary with some honey and wheat flavors. Thin in the mouth with an odd residual stickiness.

Not a great beer, not a terrible beer. For $2 a 500ml I picture broke Russian college kids drinking this and listening to The Scorpions. And that's alright.

All righty, let's check out this commie suds.

Hmm, not to shabby of a pour - golden straw with a firm white head that's lacing the ol' Bitburger pilsner glass.

Fairly malty aroma, perhaps just a hint of adjunct corn, but not enough to get worked up over. Quaff is clean, crisp, and with a sturdy backbone of grain. Fork! This ain't to bad of a brew - and no telling how long it may have sat on the shelf, where the hell is the dating?

I think the 500 ml was only $2, not a bad pint price. Low alcohol of 4.5% makes this a good session or lawn mower quaffer.

Poured from the 500ml bottle into a Belgian goblet.

Appearance- Beer pours a clear yellow golden with a half finger of head that quickly fades to nothing but carbonation rising in the center. Looks as clear as the Budweiser commercials when they show it pouring.

Smell- Light German malts and a light freshly mowed grass scent. Not entirely unpleasant, very similar to a Munich Helles. I really don't get any off flavors, not a lot of ON flavors either. Very light, very similar to a helles. Why is there a Euro Pale Lager category anyway?

Taste- Again, similar to a hell. Light Munich malts, a bit heavy on the hops and grassy, outside of that, lightly sweet, fairly smooth. Not bad really for $2. I don't know why it's getting such low reviews. It's not great, but I've had many worse.

Mouthfeel- Hops provide a bit more bitterness than I would like, light bodied, medium in carbonation.

Drinkability- Not that bad. I doubt if I'll be buying another, but if I was given one for free, I wouldn't turn it down.

500ml into pilsner glass

The hue is typical for the style, crystal clear and golden, with an off-white one finger head that settles to almost nothing.

Odd candy-like aroma. Can't tell if it's from the malts, hops, or the yeast.

Again, the weird plasticy [note: not a real word] candy flavor is the dominant flavor... well, it's sort of the only flavor. Maybe a hint of grain in the background. Am I drinking stale carbonated apple juice? Light bodied, watery, and fizzy. The finish is very clean.

Not sure what the approach was with this beer. I have no idea what one needs to do in a brewing process to make a lager that tastes like this.

After a quick Google search, I discovered there is a Youtube video dedicated to this beer called "Zhigulevskoe (worst beer in the world)". It features a gentleman in a gray shirt ambulating down a sidewalk when he comes across another gentleman drinking a bottle of Zhigulevskoe. The man in the gray asks the man in the blue shirt what he's drinking, to which he responds, "Zhigulevskoe." The man in the gray shirt then produces a large stick, and beats the other man with it.

The video sums the beer up better than I can.

Pours a one finger white head that fades to a ring and leaving traces of lace. Crystal clear pale amber color. Light carbonation and light-medium bodied. Grassy nose. Flavor is slight grassy/hoppy with hints of honey. $1.99 for a 500ml bottle from Yankee Spirits South Attleboro, Ma.

a: pours a strange golden color with about an eigth inch of head that dissapears fast leaving no lacing. there are strange floating things in this beer, possibly yeast? i dont know what it is but i know the glass was clean before pouring the beer
s: very sweet lemony corn syrup malts, not too inviting given the aroma it smells too sweet and i really cant detect any sort of hop bitterness to balance the extreme sweetness
t: very sweet, lemon poppy seed comes to mind no presence of hop bitterness to balance how overwhelmingly sweet this it not a very good beer there is an off flavor that i cant really describe
m: light bodied beer with a little carbonation

overall, this is not a very good brew and i cant see myself buying this in the future

Firm pour into a becker produces a rocky, two-fingered white head and a good bit of lacing. Although I'm sure this one has been sitting somewhere for a while, the nose is not as bad as it could be, with both sweet and dry malt notes evident (crystal and pale.) Seems like there might be another grain (wheat?) or even sugar added to this one, as there's a highly-processed note in here. There's a bit of metallic, macro-brew tang going on as well, but these are mere quibbles: the fact that this beer smells of any grain character at all fairly thrills me, given the fact that the bottle is old. After a couple of minutes the head has finally settled, leaving half a finger and minimal lacing; I'd better drink this one down now while it's cold! A smooth, almost full-bodied mouthfeel is the first impression here, followed by a malty sweetness and a light cereal grain aftertaste. There's also a vegetal (and vinuous?!) character playing havoc with the aromatics, not that there's a hop presence to speak of, but still. Very little bitterness here, and it's lighter in body than it first appeared. More acrid and less drink-able as I continue, this one will have to be a drain-pour. Still, when this one is fresh it isn't too bad a beer for what it is. At least I can remember that the place I bought it at has an excellent selection of Polish and Russian vodkas!

Taking one for the team, this was a bargain basement selection.

Pours into a stange glass with plenty of visible racing carbonation. A fluffy head rises and quickly falls. Some bone white foam crackles on the surface, more incidental than any kind of a head with staying power. High clarity golden color, very pale as it's poured from the bottle.

Mineral water, veggies, maybe a touch of honey in the first few whiffs.

Papery feel, dry with a little honey essence in there towards the end. A Czech Pils lite. Not skunky or stale thankfully, but more than a little dull. Not much character, the papery cardboard flavor is a dealbreaker though. On a hot day, this just might suffice, but plenty of others can do the job better. Picked it up based on the label's similarity to Deka Brewery beers.

Lemony gold with a large cap that filled the top two-thirds of the glass on the initial pour. The foam is the color of yellowed bone and doesn't have much to recommend it. It's crackling into oblivion fairly quickly and isn't sticky enough to leave anything on the glass.

The nose is respectable given the style (and especially given the brewery). It's fresh and grain-like with almost no musty hoppiness. I might even detect a hint of lemon zest. Zhiggy might turn out to be a pretty respectable pale lager after all.

Uh... no... not even close. How can a beer that smells so respectable taste like this. There's nothing whatsoever that's fresh about the flavor. It tastes like stale grain that was stored in stainless steel prior to brewing and it also has the suggestion of cigarette ash. Actually, it's more than a suggestion. I feel like I've been eating second-hand smoke for the last hour.

A little pale malt sweetness tries to help the cause, but it's unable to turn this liquid swill into anything that's drinkable. The mouthfeel is watery and poorly carbonated. To tell the truth, I didn't even notice because I was so occupied by the nastiness of the flavor profile.

Krasniy Vostok brews some amazingly bad beer. Zhigulevskoe just might be the worst of the whole shootin' match. Oh well, at least the label is more attractive than most of what comes out of Eastern Europe. Too bad I had to pay $2.49 to see it in person.

Poured from a very interesting bottle that I can't read into a pint glass, beer is a very light straw color with a huge white sparkling head. The smell is fruity, sort of applish and slightly of wheat. The taste is nothing impressive, similar fruity taste and a slight metallic tinge. The mouthfeel is very light with a moderate amount of carbonation. This is a pretty drinkable beer, very light and goes down easy, but it could have a little more taste.

Interesting aroma- sweet, grainy and floral/fruity.
Basic macro color with an aggressively charged white head.

The taste carries the fruit and flowers aroma a bit far- though not as far, say, as Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat.

Finish is still reasonably clean. Allowing for decent drinkability.

Not my cup of tea but decent.

Beer is imported by a firm in Mt. Pleasant, SC ... I think that's the county seat for the old Mayberry RFD!

16.9 oz brown bottle poured into a pint glass.

Clear golden macrolager color, big bubbles forming a thin white head that receded quickly.

Sweet malty macrolager smell, not paticularly pleasant, but no skunk--this must be a fresh bottle.

Suprisingly good. Average to crisp on the tongue, very fresh clean taste with a touch of bitter, a bit on the honeyed sweet side but not really off balance. Clean finish. No skunk here, I doubt this has any shelf life so try to find it fresh. A good example of this beer type, a decent choice when you want a refreshing chuggable beer.

16.9 oz glass bottle.

Clear dark golden, with a fluffy white head that vanishes rather quickly.

Aroma is sweet, corn syrup and grain.

Flavor is sweet honey, grain with a metalic finish.

As it warmed it got skunky and sour tasting. Definitely one to keep ice cold.

In a word... ужасно

Has a picture of some wheat and some hops on the front of the label, also a ship, and some russian writing that looks like gibberish. Very pale gold color body, visible carbonation. Head is about 3/4" thick, appears to be very creamy. A slight breadiness is about all that this beer smells like, aside from the huge grassy malt presence, maybe a little pepper thrown in there, also. Taste is crisp and clean, malts are straight forward, grassy, and not at all skunk, also a weird kind of spiciness going on here, also. Big carbonation gives this plenty of body. Very good for a euro pale lager, no skynk whatsoever.

The Zhigulevskoe pours a crystal-clear yellow gold body beneath a huge, rocky head of big-bubbled white froth. Standard-sized bubbles speed upwards below, adding to the head and indicating a fairly effervescent carbonation, and adding to the head; which holds quite well and leaves some very wide splashes at the outset of the glass.

The nose offers sweet and honeyish malt (obviously not an all malt beer!) with a hint of floral hops in the background.

The mouthfeel is surprisingly soft given the initial show of carbonation, and it lightly bristles the tongue before it softens and the dextrinous, medium body fades smoothly away.

The flavor is very much as the nose suggests, with a bit of candy-sweet and honeyish character to the malt, a touch of fruit (white grape), and some herbal & floral hops; all backed by a solid bitterness that comes on strong in the finish and lingers with some residual sticky malt and mild astringency.