baffling beer…

The boy’s taking a nap and so I’m back with the second beer from the YaMaYa trip today.  This one from a brewery (Kiuchi) that I’ve tried several times and generally enjoy (except the Japanese Classic  Ale) and this one is no different.  This is actually the one that I was looking forward to the most because I’d seen a bunch in pictures on the internet but I’d never come across it in a store. Can’t say I was disappointed at all by this one, however, I was terribly surprised when I checked it out on Beer Advocate.  A C from the bros!? A C+ from the readers!?  Wow…  I really like this one, it’s a Stout with a BLACK-BLACK color but it doesn’t taste much like a stout to me.  It’s got a lot lighter taste to it.  The sweetness on the back-end is nice, maybe a touch too sweet but not bad at all.  I think that when I first started drinking this one I thought we might have a He on our hands but I think that sweetness wore on me a little bit but it still receives;

Hitachino Nest Beer Lacto Sweet Stout: Ne

A day to review…

The wife’s out doing some grocery shopping for tonight’s dinner (I thought I’d let her get out of the house for once) and the boy is sleeping right now.  He looks like this:The wife thought she’d put a hat on him for some reason… he’s making noises now, wonder if I’ll make it through this review…

So, I’m sitting here enjoying a beer but before I get to that review, I was looking through my photos and I found a few pictures of beer I actually didn’t review because of time so I’ll throw those three up before I get to the one I was actually gonna do.

SanktGallen Apple Cinnamon Ale: Rn

Ebisu Silk Ebisu: Kr

Bass Pale Ale: Ar

Wow, caught up baby!  Now it’s time to get to the one I’ve actually been drinking today… Uh oh, baby’s waking up…

SanktGallen Golden Ale:

After the last two SanktGallen (flavored) beers I tried my expectations were down, despite the brewery’s strong initial showing. Finally this golden ale brought me some good flavor and drinkability.  I’ll give this one a…

Golden Ale: Ar

I think I’ll review that MLB at bat 2010 app later tonight when the other two fall asleep again.

I LOVE BAIRD BEER!

Baird Beer is one of the best Japanese 地ビール.  Tonight, the wife pulled out the Suruga Bay Imperial IPA form the fridge and wow!  This is one of the best IPAs I’ve ever had. Great bite, a bit of some fruity hints, not over-powering. I recommend taking a look at the　浮世絵 made by my favorite, Hiroshige. Fantastic beer, drink it!

Suruga Bay Imperial IPA: He

oh yeah, 7.5%!

No movement from the baby yet, might be cool to down a couple more tonight…

brew-ha-ha^ha

Right after ママ left today I was right to the beers.  I’ve got a bunch to get through and today I made it through four beers.  I drank them slowly throughout the day and I’ve enjoyed them very much. I just sat down with an Aooni after my shower to write this all down.  I’ve had the Aooni before so I’ll save that one for the end.  First up,

Baird’s Beer Rising Sun Pale Ale

This was the highlight of the day, right out of the box, a beautiful Pale Ale.  Again, I’ve had some of Baird Beer beers before and they have all been really good.  I highly recommend this one as well.  Right out of the bottle I was getting some strong fruit smells, I thought it was apricot but after the first sip I realized it was for sure, grapefruit! It has a lot of grapefruit flavor and it really accents the beer nicely.  I guess I could understand if people wouldn’t like it because of the pronounced flavor but I thought it was really nice, besides that, it’s just a really good Pale Ale, one of my favorite styles.

Rising Sun Pale Ale: Ne

Belhaven St. Andrews Ale

My first venture with a Scottish beer I believe.  It wasn’t too bad at all.  I got this one down the road at Akiba the other night when I went in and found that they had only four Yona Yona… I grabbed two and then found two different ones for myself, one was the Brugge from yesterday and then this one today.  Both are pretty decent. I think I liked this Scottish Ale a bit better than the Tripel last night, it was really pretty good I must say.

St. Andrews Ale: Ne

SanktGallen Kokuto Sweet Stout

The base reason for the package this morning was this particular beer.  That’s the only good thing I can really say about this beer.  I was fairly disappointed.  I guess I should have expected it with “sweet” in the title. I’m just glad that there were 5 other beers in the box, and I’m pretty sure that four of them will be better than this one (I have my doubts about that red one…).

Kukuto Sweet Stout: Xe

Aooni Indian Pale Ale

Finally back to now.  Still enjoying this one.  I had this for the first time when dude? brought me some from Osaka the last time he came into town and I enjoyed it.  It’s got a great bite to it.  It seems to have a less hoppy taste than your average IPA but it’s really nice, the bite really makes this beer.  I’m glad the I finally found some in Tokyo, I’ve been looking for quite a while.  I definitely think that this one is worth a shot. From the same place (Ya-Ho-) that brings us Yona Yona and Tokyo Black, one of the first breweries I want to go to after the boy is able to travel!

Aooni IPA: Ne

Proof…

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”

- Benjamin Franklin

(although it seems to be not the actual, original quote, I’ll take it)

You know what the proof is that my wife loves me and wants me to be happy? She buys me beer on the internet!

After the success of her Valentine’s day present, I woke up to the above package being given to me direct from our refrigerator (seems it was delivered while I was sleeping   When I checked out the SanktGallen Brewery site, I was really interested in the Brown Sugar beer (Kokuto Sweet Stout) and this morning she said that she could have gotten a six-pack of them or the six-pack variety.  Just in case it wasn’t so great, she played it safe, good call!  So now, in my fridge, I have 14 different beers to try, and review, and I’ve only ever had one of them before.  It’s gonna be a long day!

Brugge Tripel

Back on the Belgian wagon!  Here’s one that’s actually from Belgium. This one actually looks like a Belgium but doesn’t taste quite as good as the Great Divide one from yesterday…  Oh well, it’s pretty decent, I’ll give it a Argon for effort. 8.2%!

Brugge Tripel: Ar

Hot as Hades…

Here’s one from our buddies over in Denver at Great Divide. 

This is a “Belgian-Style Ale” that looks like a lager.  I was a bit surprised when I poured it, the color isn’t at all what I expected but the taste was. Tastes like a Belgian です. For sure one to try out if you like this style of beer. Good beer, but the best thing is the bottle.  I love the simple, quirky design, not like the over-produced crap label that Hideji came up with for their bottles… Give this one a taste people! 8%!

Great Divide Hades Ale: Ar

first on the list…

Here’s one of the beers I picked up today:

This is an American Pale Ale called “森閑のペールエール” and produced by Hideji down there in Miyazaki.  First time for me to have a Hideji beer and first time for a beer from Miyazaki or Kyushu probably. Like the name suggests (森閑 means silence) this is quite a subdued little pale ale.  Not nearly the bite you get from a good IPA, very mellow and easy to drink.  It doesn’t have very much going on with it but it’s not bad at all. I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot. It has a pretty hoppy feel to it and it’s quite expected, since the bottle has a couple of hops on it… I’ll give it a…

Hideji Shinkan Pale Ale: Ar

I wasn’t planning on even drinking tonight but one of the challenges on the new season of The Amazing Race was to down a boot of beer… it got me in the mood.  With all this new and exciting beer here at the place right now, I might do another review tonight…

beereview preview

A preview of what I picked up today at Tanakaya that I’ll be reviewing pretty soon. I also have a couple more at home to get to too:

machine gun beer reviews!

On Thursday the wife and I went for a walk and ended up at a little liquor shop at the next station over.  We were planning on walking until we found some Yona Yona ale for me because Akiba hasn’t had it lately and it was randomly closed this Wednesday and of course it’s not open on Thursdays… We ended up call it short because it was starting to rain and I got some decent beers at the shop.  I’ve now had all six that I got, a few of them I’ve had before but there were a couple that I’d never tried. I made a couple of notes when I drank them (well, some of them) and I sit here drinking a Hitachino White Ale, I’ll start with the two that I’d never had:

Whistler Premium Export Lager:

Normally lager are steered clear of but after the US lost to Canada in the gold medal game, I had been looking around for a Canadian beer to celebrate in honor of my Canadian buddies.  I didn’t find any at Tobu this week and didn’t have time to go to Tanakaya this week.  At the little shop down the way I finally found one.  This little lager was super fruity!  It had a very fruity smell, and a fuller body than I expect from a typical lager.  A little too fruity/sweet but all together not too bad.

WPEL: Kr

Hitachino Japanese Classic Ale:

When I tried this I was very conflicted.  I tasted Cheetos… It has a really strong cedar flavor and smells like furniture because it is aged in cedar barrels. Even with all of its strangeness, it wasn’t actually too bad.

HJCA: Kr

Now some that I’ve had before:

Kirin Ichiban Shibori Stout:

Decent all-around Japanese dtout, readily available, not too much happening here but good enough.

KISS: Ar

Anchor Steam Beer:

Pretty decent beer, no notes so just going off the top of my head… It was good probably.

Anchor Steam Beer: Ar

Samuel Adams:

I think everybody knows this one.  I like it, it’s not the greatest but I think it has a pretty decent flavor and stuff like that.

Sam Adams: Ar

Hitachino White Ale:

I’ve had this one a few times and I like it.  It tastes a bit like a sparkly weizen but much more subdued and I like it better than a full on weizen. For sure worth a try.

Hitachino White Ale: Ne