Friday, October 31, 2008

Hitachino Nest Bīru Sweet Stout

'A perfect mixture of coffee, chocolate, and roasted flavors in the nose and on the palate. No bitterness, but sweet notes throughout to the very finish.'
-From http://www.kodawari.cc/

I finally got Blogger to start working (better, but not perfectly) when it comes to photos. Did you know this site, which is owned by Google, does not work with Google Chrome correctly? Get your shit together guys, I need this absolutely free website to fulfill all of my needs!


Someone once told me, incorrectly, that Hitachino Nest is Japan's only microbrewery. I did a little research on this matter and found out my friend is kind of a moron, but I had an inkling of that anyway. Up until 1994 Japan's tax laws were so strict with breweries that only the four largest breweries could afford them- Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Orion. You could not get a license to brew beer unless you produced at least 2 million litres a year, imagine those start up costs! Anyhoo this all ended in 1994 with changing tax laws and there was an explosion of micro breweries in the land of the rising sun, one of them being Hitachino Nest, who I believe had to spend some time in hibernation in the period before. Please correct me if I am wrong at all, I just learn shit on the internet which has been known to lie to me.

Now that the history lesson is over, we can move on to the beer! Hitachino Nest tastes more like a black bier than a stout to me, although it did have a few characteristics of each. There are three reasons it reminds me of a black more than a stout- tons of carbonation, more yeast than I was expecting and it wasn't very thick. The hint of chocolate and the obvious addition of milk sugar made this a confusing beer that although not horrible, tasted 'off'. I don't think this beer will be a fridge stocker for me, but I might order one of Kiuchi's other brews to wash down some sashimi one day.

Lets look at this beer as a math problem and see how bizarre it looks. Feel free to shout out the answer to this equation.

Yeast + Milk Sugar + Water + Alcohol + Carbonation + Chocolate= ???

Musical Pairing: Guitar Wolf- Missile Me! (Because its Japanese and I loathe this record, hope thats good enough)

3 comments:

Amateur said...

Have you noticed Hitachino brews have a tendency to be sweet and tart at the same time?

I've got another from Hitachino sitting in the fridge that I'm not inspired to drink after the first one.

CorrND said...

I've had this one and, yes, it's terrible. But don't give up on Hitachino Nest in general. If you like coffee stouts at all, their Espresso Stout is amazing.

What I've heard is that they're very hit or miss. Those two are the only ones I've had and one was a big miss and one was a big hit. I guess I'd just say: don't buy any Hitachino Nest randomly. Make sure you look it up first to make sure it's one of their good ones.

Matt said...

Well that is good to hear since my girl purchased me four different bottles of this brew. I will dread them less now that I hear there might be a gem or two in there.