Kvas (Hlebniy Kvas)
All Stars Beverages

 

 

Pours a cola brown with a frothy 2" head that settles out with a thick ring of tan head; cloudy with some sediment settling to the bottom. Nose is spicy rye bread, caraway, and sweet cola. Taste is essentially a slightly less sweet Coke with a smattering of rye bread spices - pretty pleasant! As it warms, sour bread and pumpernickel become more pronounced. Mouthfeel is full with solid, soda pop carbonation; extremely refreshing on a hot day and went well with a plate of sausages. Worth seeking out!

Common! I made at home way better. And mine was 7% strong. No jokes!

 

 

 

Plastic screw-top bottle pour.

No head. Brown colour. Dark.

Aroma suggests baked brown bread and vitaminy yeast. Cola-like notes. Caramel. Molasses. Sourdough.

Taste is bready, with a fizzy mouthfeel holding it up and preventing it from having an overbearingly full body.

A little dry. Medium-bodied. Well-carbonated.

Overall, it's a drinkable kvass and I find it well-executed if a bit simplistic and rudimentary. Certainly balanced, and not too soft drink-leaning like many expressions of the style. I'd like to see more commitment to the breadiness though.

B- / WORTHY

2 L bottle. Pours brown with tall, long lasting, fluffy, beige head. Aroma is of sweet malt and molasses. Body is medium and crisp. Taste is of bread, brown sugar, molasses and some dark fruit. Finish is long and sweet. This tastes more like sweet soda than kvas.

 

16oz Plastic Bottle
$1.99
Cafe Vilnius - Darien, IL

This kvass started foaming the second the screw cap got turned. It was a monster. A full mug of foam started me off and the total pour took about 5 minutes. All Star Bakery's version is chestnut brown and muddy. The head eventually fizzled to nothing but the carbonation was still very active and could be seen sprinting up the sides of the mug while tiny particles of rye bread sink to the base.

This is certainly not one of the sweetened versions and actually has a sour note present. This version isn't made with rye and sugar only, barley malt was added as well and it's noticeable. Rye and barely are both present with the the rye inching ahead. The malt has taken on a soft sourness while molasses adds the sweetness. The aroma overall is understated but it's making my mouth water.

The flavor follows the nose and I'm happy about that. It's bright and malty. A soured molasses note pervades throughout while big notes of both barley and rye run their course from front to back. The sour note is a little metallic but mostly conforting in some strange way. The soft tartness doesn't stick around long after the swallow and is surpassed by a note of rye. Thereare even fruity notes popping up at times. This is the best tasting kvass I've come across.

The body is light and thin with lively, snappy carbonation that seems to scrub the tongue. This is listed as a soft drink kvass and that fits in line with the body. The tart gets at the back of the tongue a bit as does some spice from the rye. Highly drinkable.

This isn't the most rye forward kvass I've ever tasted but it is the most complex and interesting. The sour note fits perfectly. I would recommend this to anyone looking to try something new. It's strange looking to the newcomer but certainly worth a shot.

 

 

 

A thanks to woodychandler for this beer. Poured from a clear plastic 2 liter bottle. Has a cola color with a 1 inch head, considerable carbonation. Smell is of molasses, malts. Taste is bready, rye, molasses, not bad but not great either. Feels light in the mouth and overall is a mediocre beer.

(Served in an America pint glass)
A- This beer pours a dense murky brown body with a thick light tan head and chunks of jetsam banging around that turn out to be raisins and yeast chunks.

S- The yeasty cola note has a white plastic note that finishes with a septic aroma. As the beer opens the septic aroma takes on more of a hair perm tartness with some soy sauce qualities.

T- The slight sweetness of prunes finish with a bit more sweetness and a bread yeast quality with some fruity cola notes coming through. There is a bread crust note that comes through as it opens aswell.

M- The big scrubbing fizz leads to a thin light mouthfeel.

O- The sweet fizzy concoction is interesting but doesn’t have much depth and the odd smell makes it hard to take another sip. I keep sipping hoping to find some old ale or flanders red qualities in the dark fruit and tartness but they just aren’t there.

 

 

All Stars Bakery Kvas pours like and looks like soda-pop, which is not entirely coincidental given that it is ostensibly just that. Its carbonation completely fizzed out, leaving a flat cola-coloured liquid that is considerably muddied - what did you expect from something with raisins and bread crumbs floating in it?

Unless you work in an Eastern-European bakery, the aroma is likely to be unlike anything you've smelled before. Sweet and yeasty, it smells strongly of molasses and rye bread. It is odd, but curiously agreeable. Fermentation has definitely left its mark as the smell is distinguished by a certain, shall we say, 'over-ripeness'.

The taste, fortunately, doesn't taste at all like it's from the 'day-old' rack. It is laced with thick, sweet, syrupy molasses and has a slight raisin flavour on the finish. The rustic, earthy taste of dark sourdough and rye bread is lovely in liquid form (full disclosure: I am a bread lover). Its texture is frothy, with a crackling, dry finish.

I have never liked pop - and despise Coca-Cola - but this I enjoy a lot. And while the similarities with Coke begin and end with the syrupy sweetness, this makes a much healthier alternative to soda (less sugar, natural sugars, more protein, no preservatives). It is mightily refreshing and disappears quickly.

I have Russian friends who are fond of telling me stories of drinking fresh Kvas (from dubiously cleaned cups) on the streets of Moscow directly from the barrel. They tell me All Stars' version is *almost* as good as that stuff back home (though it lacks the flabby armed babushka pouring it). That's endorsement enough for me.

Been looking to get some Kvass for a while. Recently found out about a Russian Market down near Philly that carried it. Picked up a 2 Liter bottle of this today and chilled it as soon as I got home.

Gave this an aggressive pour into a 16oz chalice, the look of it resembles a dark brown cloudy cola-like liquid. The head had a bit more retention than a soda does. But by mid glass it was gone. The smell of the beer is a little on the funky side. It's yeasty and a bit little sweet too. The taste is sweet, it's much more pleasent than the smell. The taste has flavors of molasses and bread. There is virtually no bitterness. The mouthfeel is lightly carbonated with a syrupy finish. Overall this is my first Kvass, therefor I have nothing to compare it too. I feel that this is a very interesting brew, definitely glad I got to find some finally.