Bochkarev Bochkovoe (Barreled)

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 7

Another classic case of "Well, I thought this would suck. But you know what? Overall, I don't hate this".

The rest of the local beergeek crew here in SoCal give me a hard time for going far afield with my buying of obscure beers from arcane former-communist counties. And yes, for every 10 fizzy yellow schwills that I find, about 7 are pretty freakin' lousy, and one is pretty damn interesting. The other two? They fall into the grey area of "eh, I've had worse..."

Pale yellow in appearence. Fake-looking head of foam. Lacing? Yep, some.

Not all that unappealing in the nose, surprisingly enough. I'm thinking that the brown bottle helped keep this from some of the anticipated age-related issues.

But I have to say that this beer's flavor profile (and mouthfeel, to be honest) ain't so bad either. Enough basic flavor to keep this palatable, if that makes any sense -- but nothing more.

The only thing this beer really has going for it (and that's only because I'm in a particularily generous mood) is the overall drinkability factor. Quaffable? Yeah, I'd say so. Washed down Karen's excellent baked chicken dinner well enough.

Overall, I could see drinking this overseas, if the choices were slim-to-none. But for this side of the ocean, there are so many better choces out there, me'thinks....
//TB

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Typical easy and quite pleasantly drinkable lager with very typical lager taste. It's attractive beer with all features and is worth to try. In Russian light beers family it looks really good.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

This one has a good taste of draught beer, crisp and bitter enough. It is kin to Czech Staropramen even by alc. in volume and gravity. Nevertheless the difference between this beer and Bochkarev Light is very thin.