Last night we decided to relax with friends and in search of interesting snacks (squid on a skewer or smoked fish) wandered into a small store on the outskirts of town. In addition to various tasty things for beer, like exotic fish and a dozen kinds of cheeses, I found a showcase with Russian craft beer, which is nowhere else in our city did not meet.
I was surprised that the bottles had clip-on caps and were not in the usual 0.5-liter or 1-pint sizes. Everything was exclusively liter. And of course, as a lover of dark beer I chose a Handcrafted Dark from Afanasiy Brewery of Tver and MacLarin Farm Boutique.
I didn't even know farm boutiques even existed :)
The bottle itself is very heavy and judging by the thickness of the glass is very close to champagne, so I was counting on a really interesting product. In fact, it came out that way.
So it's a dark lager, medium strength (4.5%), unfiltered and made with farmyard hops and malt with very little carbonation. The drink has a great dark color, and the slowly settling foam is so thick and dense you could eat it with a spoon. Seriously! On top of that, it has a lovely coffee color and a lot of mild citrusy hops in the flavor.
The smell is expressive and very light with burnt sugar, caramel, some bread and in the distance flowers and fruit. The taste corresponds to the smell as much as possible - velvety sweetness of caramel malt, very pleasant, light bitterness, smoothly flowing into the softness of citrus hops and what is really nice - without the emphasis on burnt sugar, typical of inexpensive dark beers.
I was definitely pleased with the find and will take a couple of bottles Handcrafted Dark to our next get-together, and I'm sure that this beer will be a chic addition to pepperoni pizza - as the caramel flavor perfectly complements the moderate spice and, a slight sweetness will cover the fat from the sausage.
Actually, the day after our party, I searched for information about farm boutiques and it turned out that MacLarin is Maxim Larin, a businessman from Tver, who actively supports local farms and promotes local producers in online stores. I can only be glad that our Rostov merchants have reached out to his products, and it looks like I have a new, and quite large, list of beers to try :)
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