Russian Beer That's Beer But Not Beer?

So there's this market down the street from my friend's boyfriend's place... which is a neighborhood I used to live in years ago. She's told me she gets interesting chocolate there from time to time.

Yesterday after I dropped her off at the airport and ran some errands, one of the places I went to was the market (which has a rather American sounding name, but a good chunk of the products they sell are Russian and are written in Russian).

So this post will be a little... difficult to explain since I was not able to read/comprehend the label.

When I walked into the market, I saw lots of fruits and vegetables, but it's a tiny market so about two-thirds of it was non-produce. I checked for the chocolate and saw various other things that caught my eye, but back at the coolers were these tall bottles that looked like 2-liters of soda, but the pictures one each of them had someone holding a frothing mug of... something. When I see the image, I immediately think "beer", but it's only a couple of bucks and on the top shelf right above the juice and water.

In the end, I decide Why not? It's only a couple of bucks. and then head up to the register with my small basket of goodies.

A short woman, perhaps the Russian version of my mother, greets me kindly and begins to ring up my stuff. When she scans the bottle, I say, "That's soda, right?"

"No," she said in a thick accent, "it's beer." I'm surprised, but she continues before I can say anything. "But it's not." Now I'm confused. Then she points to the apple on the bottle and says, "This is apple... so it will be sweet."

So then I venture in with, "So it's not beer?"

"No," she replies, then searches for the words and says, "it's made like it."

"Oh, it's wheat based but distilled like beer?"

"Yeah."

I told my other roommate about it when I got home, and she said, "I dare you." Of course now I'm thinking I bought it for crying out loud... I pretty much dared myself.

So let me say... it's pretty tasty. It's like apple soda with just a bit of carbonation, but I can taste something in there which goes along the lines of what the lady said of it being 'beer but not beer'. It's color is the cross between apple juice and a medium-dark beer.

For some reason I'm thinking this would make a great float with apple or just plain vanilla ice cream.

Would I try it again?: I think I would... as well as the other flavors they have... whatever they would be seeing as only one bottle has an apple on it, and one of the price tags on the shelf said 'currant'. Hm, it will be a drinking adventure.

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