Kvas - Cinderella Russian Bakery & Cafe

elNopalero

Texas

4.1/5  rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Found at the Cinderella Café in San Francisco. My search is over! Or perhaps it has only just begun.

First off, the kvas sits in a large glass jar in a cooler, visible from the counter, and not—as I would imagine it—in a darkened root cellar somewhere in some nonexistent basement hideaway. It pours a dark honey color, like candied ginger or thick, light cider. Hardly any carbonation aside from a few bubbles that blurp up. (No sediment, but you can see the layer of fermenting grains and what not in the glass jar.) And it has this wonderfully strange aroma that’s a mix of soured/tart notes, moldy bread, and …rye. Lots of rye that carries over to the flavor as well. It’s a curious beverage that reminds me of tepache, the fermented pineapple drink from Mexico, in that I can see this being a love/hate sort of thing. To me, it has this big, heavy rye flavor that permeates every aspect of it—the smell, the flavor, and the dry finish. It’s a session beer of session beers, if session beers were made from rye bread!
No raisins in this kvas. Extremely low alcohol, in the .5 to 1.5% range.

Serving type: cask

11-17-2011 08:35:32 | More by elNopalero