Liquid Bread
Kiss My Kvass by Ah! Brewery is by far one of the strangest behaving beers that I have tried. If you don't know, kvass is a naturally fermented substance, which is normally made of rye bread. It can be consumed as a drink (common in Russia) or used to make bread. I believe this type of bread is called sourdough.
In-camera triple exposure.
Those of you that have been following me know that I have a weak spot for communist stuff: The moment I saw the label on the bottle, this beer was an instant buy for me! It's beautiful, and it reminds me of a communist poster from the 70's, aimed to inspire workers to go the extra mile and be more productive. I was not able to find the name of the artist, but the illustration is fantastic.
Color & Aroma
Before I get into that, I have to say that Kiss My Kvass erupted (literally) when I tried to pour it into my beer jar. At first. I thought that I was doing wrong, but as the foam kept coming out of the bottle, it hit me that this has something to do with the yeast and the kvass that were used.
Watch the video below, and you'll understand better.
So, color-wise, this beer is terrible! It looks like drain water, and I wish I took photos during the day so that I can show it to you. The smell is a combination of oatmeal malt and sourdough bread. Just like the one that I ate in the morning.
Flavor
Kiss my kvass tastes just like the sourdough bread that I had in the morning! But that's no surprise given that they used rye and wholegrain bread to prepare the kvass. Carbonation is good, and the finish is slightly bitter.
What's left of the sourdough bread.
Liquid bread would be the best two words to describe Kiss my Kvass. It's nothing fancy or spectacular, and I will most certainly not buy it again. That said, it inspired me to create a post about the Bulgarian beer market during the communism. If I don't get lazy, this should probably happen next weekend :)
Cheers!
All shots are taken with Lumix G80 & Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro.
Wasn't be originally used as a liquid bread to nourish workers in ancient Egypt? I vaguely remember hearing that, somewhere.
You're right about the cause of the foam and pressure! Rogue yeast can do that, and sourdough is, basically, a rogue yeast. Every once in awhile, some natural year gets into a bottle of my dad's home brew. One time, I lost half the beer. It was like rubbing Aladdin's Lamp, only wetter!
Nice triple exposure. That label is great, too! It reminds me of 40's and 50's style graphic design.
Aladdin's Lamp!!! lol
I didn't notice the triple exposure until you mentioned it....not too observant today. :)
Deb, I never thanked you for upvoting the comments under my posts :))
You're welcome.
Like rubbing Aladdin's Lamp you say, haha! 😂 That was way too funny! I think you mentioned that beer once in your posts.
You are right about ancient Egypt. According to wikipedia, beer was consumed daily by workers and craftsmen.
Thank you, Mark! Glad that you liked my exposure-experiment :) The label rocks!
Hehe... Well my dad has changed his sterilization process, and I haven't seen one quite that volatile since.
Maybe the beer is why those ancient Egyptians walked funny!
Lol, did they? Have a great week ahead, man!
Discovery did a documentary several years ago that was entertaining "How beer saved the world". Basically it was nutritional and kept people from drinking bad water even though they didn't realize the water was bad.
The documentary put an emphasis on how people didn't farm until they wanted to start brewing beer.
I may have to check that out. I know in Holland, during the late Renaissance, the water was bad and beer was the beverage of choice. The alcohol, of course, sterilized the water. That's why a lot of painted portraits of the era show inebriated people :-)
Haha, I never thought of why so many paintings showed drunk people.
I love the title of this post.....when I read it I thot - ah ha....all beer is liquid bread.
Years ago we'd drive by Molson's Brewery on the way to Toronto for work. The smell always made me gag. I'm not a fan of hops or malt smell.
I am a fan of sour dough bread however. My son used to make it...he kept a jar of the mother dough on the counter until he needed to make more bread.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about communism in your next post.
Essentially, yes! :)
I have a friend of mine who likes beer, but she always complains when I take her to this beer bar - a heavy smell of malt hits the nostrils upon entering the place.
I am a fan of sourdough bread, too. Is it true that the older the mother dough gets, the better it tastes?
Thank you for your comment, Deb ^^
I'm not entirely sure about the mother dough. I'd have to read about it again. It's been a while since he's baked bread. He might have given up on it, not sure :)
Yo Dude. I really enjoyed this - even the filming of opening the bottle and watching the foam. Actually, with the music it sounded kind of majestic. And the showing of the bread made perfect sense. I gotta say I'm curious to try. Kinda like when a friend says they just watched a terrible movie - sometimes you just gotta see what they're talking about.
Hey man! Haha, the movie comparison is spot on! 😁 However, I doubt you will be able to try it unless you visit Bulgaria one day :)) Glad that you liked it, and thanks for your comment!
This “gushing” when you open the bottle is never a good sign. It means overcatbonation and it’s usually caused by contamination. Of course the chance of contaminating a beer batch is way bigger when you use some alternative microorganisms to ferment the sugars (apart from beer yeast). I’ve never tried this beer, but think that it should not behave this way.
Of course this is not always bad. Contaminating a baths with bacteria is sometimes desired result!
I like a lot the triple exposure from the first photo and its “ghost” effect.
Cheers!
Geez, at first I thought that there might be someting wrong with the beer, but then I decided that it must be the Kvass that is causing the "gushing". You can give it a try next time you find yourself in Nosferatu :)
Glad that you liked the photos Miro and thanks for stopping by! :)
Cheers!
I prefer bread over the beer 😉. I never liked drinks with that yeasty taste... but cool artwork on the bottle, and your photos of course!
Hey dear Di :) How are you doing? You ever tried proper Russian kvass? Thanks for stopping by!
Yes I did and, I did not like it...there is a drink in Bosnia called boza, never liked it...hahahah I sound like grumpy old lady 😉.
Haha, you have boza there?! Did you know that boza is quite famous here, too? I wonder if it's the same.
I’m not sure but I think they do, same name should be same drink...
Boza goes really well with "Banichka" - the cheese pastry :)
I love bread, so I'd love that beer! Love the name (so genious!) and the label is wonderful!
Haha, I love bred too, but I didn't like it that much :)
I read it... Now I'm drinking some Japanese ones... Have "material" for a couple of next beer saturdays ;)
Triple exposure, now that's a interesting way to get all sides of the label - I'm so stealing that idea....
Haha :)) Do you have that option in-camera on the X-E3?
Yeah, I can certainly do double exposures, triples may be beyond it's capabilities though
I think you can easily fix that in Photoshop. But double exposure should be enough to capture the label :)
Cool review, interesting and informative, and the photos are really good, quite arty.. Funny you mention communism, my latest #Fiftywords story had a reference to communism, which I don't think anybody picked up on... Have a look and see if you see it :o) Don't want to be dropping a link in your comments, but if you go to my page, the post is titled "Mouse - a fifty word story" Cheers
Thank you so much @ablaze, glad that you liked my review :) Are you too a "fan" of communism? I'll read your post tonight before going to bed :) Cheers!
Hey, no I'm not too be honest with you, but, power seems to always corrupt, whether it is communism or democracy..
Or anarchy like our little community here where things are supposedly decentralized ;)
You had me on the name “kiss my kvass”, awesome :) Maybe by this they want to say “we don’t give a fuck the taste is horrible, is unique”. And I would definitely keep the bottle for the label :D
That could very well be :) The bottle went into the trash bin a couple of days ago. I used to collect beer bottles while I was in Denmark; not because of the labels, though :)
That is amazing, I love the label. I make sourdough rye bread and love the smell but I'm not sure I would want to drink it. Nice photos Dan!
Thank you Lakshmi :) Maybe the smell of such beer would tempt you to try it?
I'm sure I would taste it if you pretested to me!