I thought it about time to do a round-up of the various beers I’ve tried over the past few weeks. I must admit to quite enjoying this series, as I really don’t know what to expect with each drink I try.
To start things off, we have two beers which are from the same brewery. Yaho Brewing is proving to be an excellent source of tasty beers, I must say. The first one shares the same name with the very enjoyable “A beer for you and me” that I got not long after arriving. Whether it is actually the same beer is up for debate, but it shares the funky looking frog motif and is equally tasty. Really enjoyed this one, it is equal parts easy drinking, smoothness and tasty flavour.
The second from this brewery is the Yona Yona Ale. Not much to say apart from it being a very solid and enjoyable pale ale. They are nearly double the price of their cheapest rivals (~£1.80 to 90p) but totally worth the extra spend in my books.
From Suntory we have 金麦 or “Gold Wheat” beer. Apart from really liking the design of the can itself, there isn’t a lot I can write about this middle-of-the-road beer. Nothing wrong with it, nothing all that right. In a word: Inoffensive.
Speaking of refreshing looking can designs, next we have a Lemon Beer from Grand Kirin. The name is something like ひこうき雲と私 or literally “the aeroplane cloud and me”. I imagine it loses something in the translation.
On the beer itself, I found that the lemon flavour is there, but it is quite muted.Not a bad idea, I like the idea of a refreshing summer beer, but I don’t think this is it for me. Overall, it wasn’t too bad really, decently drinkable, but doesn’t really commit to the concept – it isn’t beery enough and not lemony enough either.
The Suntory Beer Recipe (a blueberry flavoured beer) wasn’t ever going to be great, but I at least thought it would be interesting. It does have a bit of a fruity flavour, but it was underwhelming and left me wishing for something more exciting.
Similar to the lemon beer above, it just doesn’t commit to the concept to make it worth not having a less weird and better tasting normal beer.
Finally, I had much higher hopes for this Kirin “Prime Brew” beer, but sadly it left me thinking… “Meh, okay”. It was drinkable and if pushed I could have a few, but it really wasn’t a “prime” anything and left me wanting for something more flavoursome.
My adventure continues…