Miso paste in a beer? Red miso paste? Apparently the Morita Kinshachi Beer Co. Ltd of Nagoya thinks it is a fair and proper thing to foist upon the public. I saw it in the Foodshow (basement level) liquor section of the Tokyu Department Store at Shibuya Station yesterday, first thought phht, and finally decided, oh what the hell, I've just run a marathon, I might as well give this a try. I was not expecting much though, as other attempts by Japanese craft brewers to incorporate indiginous ingredients with their brews have left me a little less than whelmed.Tasting notes
Appearance was a very dark brown transluscent colour with ruby hints. Off-white head and subdued carbonation.
Aroma was a rich prune-like vinous aroma. Nothing really punched me in the nose and shouted "aka miso" at me. No hop aroma.
Fairly clean lightish body at first, very malty and assertively rich and meaty in the back palate. But still no standout flavour that would make you say, "hey, red miso!" At 6% abv, I basically would put this down as a pretty standard, actually quite good, Bock beer. I wasn't knocked out at the first sip, but by the last I could have easily opened another bottle.
Overall score 7.5/10. (maybe another 0.5 for the label).
2 comments:
It's probably only a matter of time until you find green tea, azuki or tarako beers...
Green tea has already been done I think (but can't confirm at the moment). Adzuki...you could do that in smallish doses, but it wouldn't come through in the taste, so not much point. Tarako!! Why not ika-sumi black beer? (Actually, considering they put oysters in some stouts, the right level of ika-sumi in a high gravity stout would probably be not too bad. But the wrong level would be awful. I have tried an ume home brew that was actually pretty good. Baird beer makes Mikan ale and kabocha ale. Nest in Ibaragi has made a red rice beer, and so it goes on.
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