Local Beer from Nagano

As the picture can tell we were very serious about our mission of tasting these beers. To be honest, I don't remember much of this night, but apparently I (we) did try these brews.

Winter Lineup 2014

Tested some winter edition beers today with Józsi. To me, after yesterday's major drinking, they all tasted the same. However, Józsi came up with an actual ranking.

 

1. Suntory: Fuyu no hōjun
2. Kirin: Fuyu kirin
3. Asahi: Fuyu no okurimono

 

 

P.S. Sapporo did put out a winter beer, but their's is real beer; therefore, it is uncomparable with these third-type stuff.

Grand Kirin Battle

Compared some Kirin beers sold only at convenient stores for a premium price of 245 yen per bottle. Kirin started an entirely new strategy on the market. While one of the beers is sold at all convenient stores, the other ones are sold only at a specific store only. Miki was my partner in crime sorting these babies out. Anyways, without further ado, here is our ranking. 

Miki's ranking
1. Mild rich (Lawson)
2. The aroma (7-Eleven)
3. Hop fruity (Family Mart)
4. Browny (Circle-K/Sunkus)
5. Rich malt & dip hop (All stores)

My ranking
1. The aroma
2. Mild rich
3. Hop fruity
4. Browny
5. Rich malt & dip hop

 

 Pictures: Before/after. Haha!

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.

Most Popular New Genre Beers on the Market

OK, me and Miki got together for some serious drinking, but we had nothing to compare. So what do you do? We picked some beers we already had before. This time we picked the most popular new genre brands of the four major Japanese beer makers. Same old, same old... here comes the ranking. Oh, forgot to say, our ranking was identical.

1. Suntory Kinmugi
2. Clear Asahi
3. Sapporo Mugi to Hop / The Gold
4. Kirin Nodogoshi Nama

Light Happōshu

Another weekend, another beer battle. This time, we compared all six low cal/low carb happōshu (low malt beer) currently on the market. My partner in crime was my fellow beer lover Miki. We usually stay away from light beer, but we decided what the heck let's give'em a try. However, our prejudice against light beer proved us right. Light beer just doesn't cut it for us. But nevermind all that. Here comes our ranking. 

Miki's ranking
1. Asahi Aqua Blue
2. Kirin Zero
3. Asahi Style Free
4. Kirin Tanrei Green Label
5. Sapporo Koku Zero
6. Kirin Tanrei Double

My ranking
1. Sapporo Koku Zero
2. Asahi Aqua Blue
3. Kirin Tanrei Green Label
4. Kirin Zero
5. Asahi Style Free
6. Kirin Tanrei Double

See ranking of light new genre here.

Fall Lineup 2014

Well I'm only human. Just realized that Kirin has been putting out "real" beers in the fall. So I apologize for segregating Sapporo's winter edition last year for being real beer. (Actually I am writing this post in January 2015 and I left out Sapporo's winter beer in 2014 as well.)

Anyways, I was gonna have a little get together and compare these brews, but for whatever reason I ended up drinking them by myself. But just for the heck of it, let me post this group pic of these babies.

Light New Genre

Hesitated for a long time, but finally decided to test some light (low carb / low cal) beers. There are 12 different light beers on the Japanese market from the four major beer makers. Six of them are happoshu, another six are new genre. This time, Józsi and I tested the new genre kind. The testing was difficult because these beers are ranging between little to no taste at all. Here is the result in a descending order (watery, waterier, wateriest, rainwater, tap water, pure water). Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), our results were identical.

 

1. Kirin Koiaji Tōshitsu 0.

2-5. Four Asahi products (Alphabetical order: Aqua Zero, Blue Label, Off, Strong Off). They are equally tasteless. Actually Strong Off has some alcohol-like taste, but I'd say it just makes it even worse.

6. Suntory Kinmugi Tōshitsu 70% Off. I love regular Kinmugi, but this light version is by far the wateriest beer I have ever tasted.

All Blacks

After a hard week of work, we decided to do a little get together with BBQ and beer tasting. This time I picked Japanese dark beers available on the market. The lineup is as follows (from left to right): 1. Sapporo Mugi to Hop Kuro, 2. Kirin Stout, 3. Yebisu Premium Black, 4. Suntory The Premium Malt's Kuro, 5. Asahi Kuronama and 6. Asahi Dry Black. Only Sapporo Mugi to Hop Kuro is new genre, all the other ones are real beers. To be honest, after the third one they kinda started to taste the same. Anyways, here is our ranking.

 

Miki's ranking:
1. Yebisu Premium Black
2. Asahi Kuronama
3. Kirin Stout
4. Asahi Dry Black
5. Suntory The Premium Malt's Kuro
6. Sapporo Mugi to Hop Kuro

Józsi's ranking:
1. Yebisu Premium Black
2. Kirin Stout
3. Asahi Kuronama
4. Suntory The Premium Malt's Kuro
5. Asahi Dry Black
6. Sapporo Mugi to Hop Kuro

Attila's ranking:
1. Yebisu Premium Black
2. Kirin Stout
And the rest is all the same...

My ranking:
1. Yebisu Premium Black
2. Kirin Stout
3. Asahi Kuronama
4. Asahi Dry Black
5. Suntory The Premium Malt's Kuro
6. Sapporo Mugi to Hop Kuro

Japanese happōshu battle with Miki

Suntory doesn't even bother selling happōshu (low-malt beer), so the battle took place among Asahi, Kirin and Sapporo. Ranking was pretty easy: Watery, more watery and most watery. No wonder the happōshu market is so small in terms of products. Since happōshu and some new genre (low-malt beer/spirits mix) taste almost the same, I'm pretty sure people who want to save money on beer would rather buy the cheaper new genre than happōshu which is priced between real beer and new genre. As an interesting side note, while Kirin's Tanrei is sold almost everywhere, you really have to keep your eyes open to find the other two. 

Ranking by Miki
1. Asahi
2. Sapporo
3. Kirin

Ranking by me
1. Asahi
2. Kirin
3. Sapporo

Winter Lineup 2013

I was gonna post this last weekend but a major hangover prevented me from doing so. Nevermind it's barely fall yet, the winter season beers are out for almost a month. Anyways, I tested them with my trusted friend Józsi and we reached the miserable conclusion that they are not for human consumption. We unanomously decided not to rank them because they are equally bad, hence unrankable. At the end, Józsi wanted to make bad worse so he mixed the leftovers in one glass and gobbled it down like there's no mañana.

Fall Lineup 2013

The limited edition beers of the fall season are out in full force. Of course, I couldn't miss the chance to take a look-see of these bad boys. Originally I was gonna write a book about their ins and outs, and their intricate connection to the universe, but after a long day of drinking with my good friend Miki, I decided to make it a brief ranking.

Miki's ranking
1. Furano no aki (富良野の秋, Sapporo 5%)
2. Akiaji (秋味, Kirin 6%)
3. Akiraku (秋楽, Suntory 6%)
4. Akiyoi (秋宵, Asahi 6%)

My ranking
1. Akiraku
2. Furano no aki
3. Akiaji
4. Akiyoi