Königsberg Premium

Brewed by Pivovarnia Ivana Taranova (Heineken)
Style: Pale Lager
Kaliningrad, Russia

Bottle. Pours very light golden with a fizzy head that vanished pretty quickly. Aroma is very sweet, almost like fruity candy. Some malt creeps into the flavor, but it still tastes of a whole lot of corn syrup, particularly in the finish. Hardly any hops for balance, which is pretty typical of Russian brews. Kind of slippery on the tongue. Very forgettable.

Bottle - 500ml. Pale gold body with lasting white foamy/creamy head. Fair malty/hoppy aroma with biscuity and flowery hints. Taste is well balanced but lacks complexity. Ends with a decent bittersweet finish. Average everyday Lager.

gold with a small white head. lemon, caramel aroma. flavor is corn syrup, honey, caramel. light bodied.

Bottle... Mostly clear yellow lager with a small, fizzy, white head. The nose is all orange blossom honey and barley. The flavor is honey-sweet, but a weak attempt is made (with little success) to provide balance with spicy hops. Light-bodied with lively carbonation. Lightly sweet, grassy finish.

.5L Bottle from Sam’s Wines, Downers Grove; label dates not marked. It’s a Russian beer! With a German name! Or is it named after Woody Allen? Either way, here’s the rating that will give it a percentile score…

Major skunky smell from the moment I opened this one. Letting it rest in a tall lager glass only slightly improvesd the smell, but at least I can put my nose to it and catch the beginnings of a hop aroma. Heavily filtered yellow in the glass, with a stiff head of foam than leaves some rings aroung the rim. Taste is suddenly very lacking. Just a slight maltiness, a little carbonation at the back of the palate, but a thin, watery mouthfeel. Slightly oily finish. Now I’ve had Russian beers--including this brewery’s own <a href=http://ratebeer.com/beer/doktor-dizel-(do Diesel, that ranged from middling to just plain bad, but this one stands out for being completely bland. It’s like there’s a bottle of this installed in Plato’s cave as the ideal pale, flavorless megabrew lager and all B/M/C/Heinie brews are just the pale shadows in the real world. I haven’t even finished the bottle, and I’ve already forgotten what it tastes like, except for that wet peanut shell smell hovering around me.

.5 L brown bottle at the Brickskeller. Clean, but very subtle in the malty flavor and the hop presence. Light bodied and pale straw in color. Drinkable, but no threat to Baltika.

Good looking brew - golden bodied with the beading of miniscule bubbles and a dense, creamy head that does some heavy handed lacing. Falls apart after that. The aroma is sweet & corny with a dirty (as opposed to earthy) hopping. The flavor is sweet with corn syrup, somewhat grainy, and the hops turn into grass that a dog may have rolled in. The finish is sugar sweet with a metallic bitterness. Everything I expected.

<font size=-4><a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/Places/ShowPlace.asp? Beverage Depot, Orland Park, IL<font size=-1>

shaker / inactive and hazy straw body with small white head. sweet and artificial, sugary, with thick mouthfeel. strange, unwanted aftertaste. no thanks.