371. Hitachino Real Ginger Brew

“Their beers are good as soon as you accept they’re not gonna be what you want them to be.”

This is our first beer from Kiuchi Brewery in Ibaraki, Japan. We tried it mainly because of our love of a good ginger beer—Mount Island Desert Ginger from Atlantic Brewing Company is still the benchmark here, although I still miss the old label, which was so much cooler.

Real Ginger pours a clear caramel with an ivory tan head. The nose has a sweet candy caramel malt aroma coupled with some spicy ginger coupled. Flavors open with soft caramel and a bit of toffee before moving into a clean creamy middle with more sweetness and some herbal ginger flavors. The finish starts sweet, but dries out quickly, and has a slighty chalky or minerally characteristic and has a bit of a spicy ginger bite. Real Ginger has a medium body with a soft, creamy, and bready mouthfeel. The carbonation is medium, but there is not much of a presence across the profile. There is also a bit of an herbal spicy tang on the back of the throat as well, which corresponds to the spicy, dry bite in the finish. Real Ginger is a well-made, interesting beer; it’s the first Top 1o Best contender of the new year.

From the bottle: “Fresh ginger roots added to the brewkettle create an intriguing balance of ginger-spicy, sweet-malty and hop-dry flavors and aromas.”

From the Hitachino website (I think this is the most succint description from a brewery’s website that we’ve ever seen): “This Ginger Ale is brewed using fresh fragrant raw ginger.”

ABV: 7.0%
Malt: Marris Otter, Munich, Crystal, & Chocolate
Hops: Chinook, Perle, & Styrian Golding
IBU: 18
Specialty: Ginger

(7/6/2010)

309. Asahi Super Dry

This is our first beer from Asahi Breweries, which is located in Tokyo, Japan. We had this out of the bottle at Saya, a Korean and Japanese restaurant in Fairborn—our friends Art and Chloe took us there.

Pouring a light gold with a thin white head, Asahi Super Dry has a sweet flat grainy nose. The front starts sweet, moving into a slightly grainy and dry middle (it’s that patented “KARAKUCHI” style!), before finishing with a light hop bite that is also slightly spicy—you know, something of your classic lager-esque finish. The body is light and dry on the palate with a medium to low carbonation. Flavors are good, and the dryness is nice, but a bit more body would help round out this beer and marry the graininess of the middle with the other flavors. We know the point here is dryness, but this beer seems caught up in the goal of making a beer that tastes like nothing. And we’re not sure we can get behind that.

Yes, my friends, that’s Ray Allen, selling the Asahi...

From the Asahi website: “Since its debut in Japan in 1987 as the first ‘KARAKUCHI’ (dry) beer, Asahi Super Dry has set a new de facto standard in Japanese brewing. Over the years Super Dry has continued to expand its popularity while offering refreshing good taste and drinking pleasure. Behind its overwhelming popularity among people regardless of age, as well as among those restauranteurs and professionalswho keenly discern good taste, lies the story of the three secrets of Super Dry: Use of a Rare, Special Yeast, Selected Ingredients, and Manufacturing Technology.

To make Super Dry beer, we use a rare yeast, the Asahi yeast strain No. 318, which not only yields outstanding fermentation, but produces a complex aroma that results in an elegant and sophisticated flavor and ensures Super Dry’s pure, crisp, dry taste. Yeast are sensitive micro-organisms, and their conditions constantly change during fermentation. Creating an optimal environment for yeast to ‘do their best job’ for beer-making depends on the beer brewer’s technology. We are ceaselessly developing new technologies to pursue a more sophisticated, clear, KARAKUCHI taste.”

ABV: 5.0%

(5/5/2010)

287. Nøgne Ø Dobbel India Pale Ale

This beer is a collabo (and yes, I still love that word) between brewmasters Kjetil Jikrun of Nøgne Ø in Grimstad, Norway and Toshio Ishi from YoHo Brewing in Nagano-ken Kitasaga-gun, Japan; it was brewed and bottled at Nøgne Ø.

The color is a cross between amber and copper; the deep rich reddish-hued fluid has an aggressive rocky ivory head that hangs around and paints down the side of the glass. Starting with a lot of caramel malt flavor, a bit of spiciness, and light darker fruit flavors, Dobbel IPA moves into bitterness in the middle before ending with a lighter candy sweetness and some lingering spicy bitterness. There is not much is the way of hop flavor besides the spiciness, and the malt flavor does have some amber ale characteristics to it—deep, thick, and rich with a malt complexity that, while lighter that of the DIPAs we’ve previously had, does have some darker fruit characteristics to it. Dobbel has a medium body with medium carbonation, although there is a decent carbonation bite. There is also some puckering on the tongue and a light astringency from the hops. Enjoyable and interesting, but we did expect a bit more excitement and hop punch; the balance is more towards the malt in this beer, even with the 100 IBUs. It is slightly reminiscent of Rogue’s Cap’n Sig’s Northwestern Ale, which is described as an India Red Ale. We’d be interested to know more of what the brewers’ intentions with this beer were, but since most of the descriptions are in Norwegian or Japanese, we’re not doing so well translating them. We’ll see what their respective websites has to say.

OK, their websites weren’t really helpful either. We’ll let you check out the label and do your own deciphering (you know the game—click on the label to get a larger version). Good luck!

ABV: 8.0%
IBU: 100
OG: 19° P
Malts: Pilsner, Munich, & Crystal
Hops: Millenium, Centennial, Chinook, Amarillo, & Brewers Gold

(4/13/2010)

254. Ise Kadoya Triple Hop Ale

Today’s offering comes from the Ise Kadoya Microbrewery in Ise, Japan, where they have been producing beer since 1997.

Triple Hop Ale pours a crystal clear golden copper color with a long lasting mousse-y white head; the nose has a mix of malt and hops, with the malt sweet and hops lightly spicy. The flavor begins with malty sweetness that moves into hop bitterness in the middle, along with some paper flavor, and finishes dry with bready malt flavors and some lingering oxidized/paper flavors. There is also a light twang of lager-esque hop bitterness/soapiness at the end. Triple Hop is medium bodied with a mix of dry crispness and sweetness, and the carbonation is medium, but soft on the palate. There is some brightness and sharpness, but that is more beer body than carbonation. Interesting, but not the best tasting beer; we’re not sure if this is from age, the effects of travel, or something else. Triple Hop does taste more like a souped-up Japanese lager, with slightly more malt and hops. While there might be a slightly fruity flavor that develops in the front and middle as it warms, Triple Hop still could use a bit more body and hoppiness—as is, it is more akin to triple hopped Miller Lite.

From the bottle: “Ise Kadoya has made miso and soy sauce according to ancient tradition in a centuries-old wood building in old Ise, and now brews beer in small batches in the same traditional, natural way.”

From the Ise Kadoya website: “This beer is extremely popular among our Pale Ale fans. Our recipe and its particular mix of three different kinds of hops creates a more complex and richer flavor than our Pale Ale by extracting the optimal amount of flavor and bitterness to create a clean finish. This Triple Hop Pale Ale has a short shelf-life since it is quickly snapped up by our fans.”

ABV: 5.0%

(3/11/2010)