When I turned 21 I had picked up Old Rasputin, and I have only ever found it at a Central Market (an upper scale HEB located in Texas). Since it has been approximately a decade since I tried the beer, I still believe I recall exactly how it was (and this one is remarkably similar;) notably the carbonation was not high due to the gravity, and yet because I had control over the fermentation and used a secondary fermenter (which I HIGHLY recommend for this beer) and had a slow fermentation at about 70-75 Fahrenheit over a month fermentation time; it turned out very smooth and was as excellent as the remarkable Russian stout it is cloned after. Though I am new to this homebrew company and have been brewing at intermediate level (all grain, though this was an extract brew to simplify things) for several years and have lived in Texas; this is the one beer of the few that I have tried on here that I would un-doubtably (among the 20+ beers that I have made so far) return to when wanting to recreate a "Russian stout" (basically a British imperial stout style marketed to the Russian Tzar.) This is the best stout I've ever made and I look forward to trying other beer recipes from Austin Home Brew. The Safale-05 is perfectly sufficient, though I also used burton salt (with papain extract) and yeast nutrient, along with RO filtered water with Concentrace extract, which I do for all my beer. No yeast starter necessary though it wouldn't hurt.
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