Looks like cola in the glass. No head Ok intensity in the aroma Balanced sweetness and an ok carbonation level Bread, rye, fruity and some spices in the flavor Tasty stuff at such a low alcohol level [1.5 liter plastic can from UMS in Fredrikstad, Norway] Brewery #2313

Bottle. A- Molasses, honey, cola, sugary. A- Dark brown color, clear liquid, no head. T- Molasses, raisins, cola, sugary. P- Light body, prickly texture, high carbonation, sweet finish. O- One of the lower quality kvas I've had from this company. Pretty sugary sweet and not a lot of flavors I find in the others. Okay.

Квас, а хули почему бы и нет?

2l flaska från Baraban. Mörkbrun utan skum. Rågbröd, sirap, svartvinbärssaft. som en mindre söt julmust.

Industrial kvass made in the Ukraine, containing lots of added sugar, lactic acid, ascorbic acid, colorant, preservatives and so on – but also rye bread, the core ingredient in this tradition of Russian table ‘beers’. Non-alcoholic, coming from a 2 l PET bottle, bought at a Russian supermarket in Ghent. Overflowed when opening, probably because it had been shaken a bit too much – like a bottle of Coca-Cola would… Loose, big, pale off-beige bubbles, fizzing away into absolutely nothing in seconds like the bubbles on a glass of coke; clear and deep mahogany brown colour with a ruddy tinge, sparkling like a soda – the whole thing looks a lot like iced tea to me, but darker. Aroma of indeed recognizable rye bread, very old and dusty caramel candy, sugared cold tea or iced tea indeed, Coca-Cola even, hints of chewing gum, bread crust, rubber and tomato concentrate. Sweet, sugary onset, very sticky even but countered by the added ascorbic acid, giving it an initial impression of industrial iced tea again, fizzy like lemonade and sticky like coke, watery, slender body; a somewhat ‘deeper’ caramelliness and even very slight dark rye-breadiness are palpable in the middle, but the sugary sweetness sticks till the end, over a tea-ish herbal accent. Soft drink in the style of iced tea or even coke but with a dark-grainy touch to it, almost chocolate malt-ish, though not nearly enough to create a ‘beery’ feeling. This drinks like a weird kind of iced tea, but I had no problems emptying the entire bottle as I was in the mood for a sweet soft drink anyway… Bizarre, this was my first kvass and I was very curious about these big plastic bottles lurking in that Russian supermarket, but the overall experience was very different from what I was expecting – I was expecting something closer to Belgian ‘tafelbier’, but got a special kind of soft drink or root beer instead. I probably still have no idea what traditionally made Russian kvass is like, though…

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