Arsenalnoe Zakalennoye

Brewed by Baltika Brewery (Baltic Beverages Holding - Carlsberg)
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
St. Petersburg, Russia

Courtesy of acrdz. Clear straw body with a tiny white head. Boozy, fusel nose with corn starch and herbs. The flavor is lightly sweet, no bitterness with corn, dough, honey and cider. Medium/light body is thin with moderate carbonation.

Can, inflicted upon me by NachlamSie. Pours a super pale yellow with an attractive white head that, unfortunately, disappears after just a few seconds. The aroma is right out of the malt liquor textbook-- sweet corn, that styrofoam note I always notice, some odd spiciness. The flavor is corn and, stealing from NachlamSie, a stale candy sweetness that does resemble Gummy Worms. It’s unpleasantly sweet all around with some really weird herbal notes which I can only assume come from the chili peppers, because I don’t notice them anywhere else in the flavor. This "beer" is not good.

Can split with Tronraner. Drinking this swill recalls a similar session with the four-o. It’s more like a psychology session than a beer tasting. Why would I see a tall boy can in a TN liquor store with pistols, flames, and Cyrillic and think that it’s a good idea to drink the contents? It doesn’t add up. Anyway here I am, fairly drunk and choking down this crap. The pour is very light with a soapy head. I took a sniff only to find straight up malt liquor. We’re talking highly sweet, artificial sugar substitute, candy corn nonsense. The flavor is more the same. Gummy worms, Sucralose, candy all around. Remember those clear gummy worms? Why were they clear? Why is this stuff produced? Now that I’m completed "rating" this fine drink, I see that it supposedly contains chili pepper extract. No. I get zero hint of pepper. There is no heat whatsoever. Maybe just some kind of vegetal crap if I try to imagine it, but this stuff has >0 heat. This is pure malt likka.

The aroma was malty and sweet with a strong presence of candy and caramel. Clean lager aroma without any esters, but with plenty of malt. The beer poured into the glass crystal clear golden straw with a white head which lasted but an instant and which left no traces on the glass. The flavor was malty with an underlying sweetness and just a hint of a pepper presence, but without any heat. The flavor was mostly caramel and candy and without any real bittering except for a hint of grassy hop flavor. The finish was eventually dry with a very slight pepper flavor in the aftertaste. The body was medium and the carbonation was nearly nonexistent. Nothing to seek out, but fun to try a canned beer with some pepper nonetheless. 16.9 ounce can (just like the picture). Has a stick on label which says Arsenalnoe Special Extra Ale.

pours cold nice fizz white head,high carbonation,malty nose,slight pepper zing,you can taste the sweetnes from the maltose syrup,and a slight pepper finish on the lips.Interesting....Ok beer.

Hey Cave Creek Chilli Beer, come and meet your Russian cousin. He sure looks different. With those hot flames licking his legs and the antique pistols that he sports, you can tell he’s not from around here. But when you get down to it, he’s a lot like you. Better looking, I reckon but he don’t smell any better. Very green and vegetal. Green capsicum, tobacco, maybe some rubber car mat. And the taste? Well, I wrote "bracing" and "umbrella" in my notebook and that’s a first. Oily malt-liquor mouthfeel. Definite DMS, sulphur and rubber with a hot chilli burn in the finish. The can is a design classic. The beer? Hmm... (Coz’s Ashfield RB get-together 07. Thanks Linc for this one.)

500ml can. pours honey gold hue, head is bountiful and digresses to a relaxed layer of foam atop the lager. aromas of spicy honey, distinct yeast, and chili’s. alcohol is noticable, and the chili peppers really shine through on the finish. good after-work brew. kick back a couple and catch prime-time tv. that’s what it’s good for. high drinkability, not the greatest beer.

Russian chilli malt likka??? Hellz yeah1!!11! Actually this stuff was surprisingly good. First of all the can’s design is fantastic - any beer with flames and guns (and I’m sure there was a cannon on there too) on the can must be awesome. Anyway there’s a definite feel of quality malt character about this one. It’s a bit sweet, but loaded with starchy, uncooked spaghetti-type Eastern European maltiness. No weird off flavours like you’d expect, just clean maltiness and a very subtle bit of chilli flavour (not heat) at the end to round it out. Hops are basically absent, but whilst it’s a bit thick and sweet I wouldn’t say it’s out of balance. Didn’t notice the alcohol either. Stunningly enjoyable. Drinking this beer made me smile. Thanks for forcing me to take it, Linc!