Grand Kirin Hop Fruity

Fruity indeed.

Name: Grand Kirin Hop Fruity
Launch date: September 23, 2014

Ingredients: Malt, hops

Alcohol content: 5.5%

Tax category: Beer

Company: Kirin Brewery
Note: Sold at Family Mart only.

Asahi Super Dry / Dry Black / Orange & Black

I just don't understand why I torture my taste buds with funky stuff like this.

Name: Asahi Super Dry / Dry Black / Orange & Black
Launch: Sep. 9, 2014
Ingredients: Malt, malt extract, hops, rice, corn, starch, essence
Alcohol content: 5.5%
Tax category: Happōshu
Company: Asahi Breweries
Note: Limited volume.

Asahi Beer Spritzer

Tastes more like wine, less like beer. I really don't get what the product philosophy behind a hybrid drink like this one. People who wanna drink beer will buy beer and people who wanna drink wine will buy wine. Only beer bloggers like me and those unfortunate ones who left their glasses home while out shopping would buy such a funky product.

 

 

Name: Asahi Beer Spritzer

Launch: Sep. 9, 2014
Ingredients: Malt, hops, sugars, caramel pigment, white wine, grape juice, yeast extract, soybean protein, acidifier, essence
Alcohol content: 3.5%
Tax category: Happōshu
Company: Asahi Breweries

Kirin Tanrei Platinum Double

For ranking, check out my Zero/Zero Happōshu post.

 Name: Kirin Tanrei Platinum Double
Type:
Ingredients: Malt, hops, barley, sugars, caramel pigment, spirits, essence, acidifier, processed starch, sweetener (acesulfame K)
Alcohol content: 5.5%
Tax category: Happōshu
Company: Kirin Brewery

Asahi Super Zero

For ranking, check out my Zero/Zero Happōshu post.

Name: Asahi Super Zero

Launch:
Ingredients: Malt extract, hops, caramel pigment, alcohol, dietary fiber, rice lactic acid fermentation liquid, acidulant, flavoring, emulsifier, flavoring (amino acids), anti-oxidant (Vitamin C), sweetener (acesulfame K)
Alcohol content: 5.5%
Tax category: Happōshu
Company: Asahi Breweries

Oettinger Export

Not bad. The strongest of the three Oettinger brews with 5.4 percent.

Name: Oettinger Export
Ingredients: Malt, hops
Alcohol content: 5.4% 
Tax category: Beer
Origin: Germany
Notes: 330ml can.

Int'l 9

Miki (Nick) and I had too much free time at hand, so decided to have a little beer tasting over the weekend. Went to the nearest Sugita liquor shop for some samples and picked up four bad boys randomly. Random it was, we chose two Americanos, one Spanish and one German. Nevermind all the fluff, here is our (identical) ranking.

1. Warsteiner (Germany)
2. Estrella Galicia (Spain)
3. Liberty Ale (USA)
4. Budweiser (USA)

Zero / Zero Happōshu

Wow, what a day. We tested four no sugar/no purine (whatever that is) happōshu (low malt beer). Three of them came out on September 2, while the fourth one from Sapporo was launched a couple months earlier. Actually it was upgraded from new genre after the tax people figured out that Sapporo misidentified its product which enabled the brew to qualify for a lower tax bracket.* But nevermind all that tax talk, let's get to the testing part. Miki and Józsi were so kind to help me taste the four products which ranged in flavor from chewing gum through bitter medicine to non-alcoholic beer. After the first two, Miki said that he had enough of this crap and refused to try the other two. Józsi and I decided to keep going and try all of them. Our conclusion was that they not only taste like something other than beer, but they taste like more or less the same product sold under different brands. Anyways, we abandoned our initial plan to rank these beers and decided give them zeros which should not be all that bad in terms of evaluation since we are talking about 0/0 beers.

 

* You can read about this issue here in more detail.

Kohaku Yebisu

Just came out today! Hmmm, very little initial taste followed by some unexpectedly strong bitter aftertaste.

Name: Kohaku Yebisu

Ingredients: Malt, hops

Alcohol content: 5.5%

Tax category: Beer

Company: Sapporo Breweries