Appearance – Pours a very clear amber, almost orange, color with a small white head and is gone in a jiff.

Smell – Sweet malts with some grains.

Taste – Starts off sweet like honey and then goes to a grainy and earthy hop taste and finishes off sweet again and with a little alcohol bite.

A nice gentleman named Gary recommended this one to me while I was in the store so I took him up on it.  I had never had a Russian beer before nor do I recall a lager at 8% ABV before.  This is not your normal lager though.  The sweet honey like taste made it very pleasant.  The alcohol bite had quite a warming effect to it and you could definitely feel it after a couple bottles.  Enjoy it but with caution or you might find yourself talking Russian to your friends by the end of the night.  And you don’t even know how to speak it!

Overall Grade – B

Appearance – Pours a slightly hazy orangish yellow color with a foamy white head.

Smell – Lemon and other spices hit the nose immediately.

Taste – There is a big spice presence that seems to stick around through out the taste.  Some citrus hints, especially lemon, mix in there with a slight hoppiness to give it some bitter qualities.

This one was quite the different beer to me.  I have never had lager with these white ale qualities in it.  I enjoyed the refreshing qualities of it out in the oven like heat of Arizona last week.  Another good one from the guys at Shmaltz.

Overall Grade – B

Appearance - Pours a golden yellow color that is slightly hazy with a decent sized white head.  You can see yeast floating around in it.

Smell - Yeast was the most prominent thing I could pick up.

Taste - Very yeasty with hints of orange.  Is this a lager or a white?

Being a resident of Florida I have only had one beer brewed in this state already, that was from St. Somewhere.  So I figured I should pick up another home state brew and give it a whirl.  I was really thrown off by this one.  I expected lager but it tasted almost like a white ale.  Very yeasty with the slight citrus taste.  For a lager this wasn’t so good.  If someone told me it was a wheat then I would think it was so so.

Overall Grade – D+