Gubernatorskoye
Irkutskpisheprom

Picked up on a recent boondoggle (I use the term loosely) to Vladivostok. Comes in a standard brown half liter bottle with a red and gold label featuring the visage of one Count Nikolay Nikolayevich Muravyev Amurskiy, all decked out in 19th century military threads. The back label tells us he was the General Governor (the beer's name means "Governor's") of Eastern Siberia and earned the title Graf Amurskiy for his military expedition to the Amur river in the 1850s. See, drinking beer is an educational experience! Ingredients include "granulated sugar" and rice. It packs a wallop at 9.4% - highest ABV I've found among Russian beers. Best within 9 months of 7/21/04, I opened it on 4/2/05 - just under the wire.

Poured a standard clear gold under a one finger off-white head that is gone immediately. The nose is sickly honey malt sweet. The mouth is very prickly and sticky/heavy. Taste? Oh, man: sweet, sugary alcohol flavor. A bit of grain buried deep inside, but none of the usual strong metallic hops notes of a typical Russian strong. This one leaves it all sweet and alcoholic. I detect a touch of fruit - grape? - but there's neither complexity nor subtlety here. Just artificially strong beer. Might as well drink vodka.