Volga Yachminnoye (Barley)
Baltika Breweries

Brewed by Baltic's Yarpivo brewery in Yaroslavl, the barley variety comes in a 1.5l brown blastic bottle with a brown and silver label featuring the English word "barley" and the seal of the brewery. Ingredients conform to the purity law. Best before 6/14/04, I opened it on 5/21/04.

Pours an attractive clear orange-gold hue under a one finger white head that fades pretty quickly and leaves no lace. The nose is mild and all malt. There's just a hint of the sourishness of Russian malt, but mainly the nose is quite clean and crisp. The mouth is light and quite prickly. The taste opens with a lot of sweet barley malt, rather like liquid bread. There's also a fair amount of hops here, lending a bitter edge to the sweet malt. The aftertaste is a good combination of the two. Quite a drinkable brew.