Akarusho Biere de Banane

Brewed by Urwibutso Enterprise
Style: Traditional Ale
Kigali, Rwanda

Bottle at pilsnerpeter’s. Thanks to everybody for their generosity. Hazy pale milky brown. Glue banana nail polish aroma. Tomato sugar banana honey sweet and sour sauce tea and glue flavor. Fucking gross.

Ugly, muddy pour. The nose is very odd. A bit of acetone and light grainy huskiness. There is a little bit of fruitiness but the nose is kind of faint. A little bit husky and stinky showing a kiss of starch… more like plantain than banana. There is a lingering grainy sorghum-like sweetness on the back along with a touch of banana and light smoke toward the back. It has a very slick, sweet palate but it doesn’t seem underattenuated. Definitely a strange beast, this one, but not as bad as I would have thought.

Thanks to JoeMcPhee for sharing a new country with me and his wife for actually bringing this back to the states. A nice looking cloudy headless murky brownish/amber pour. Interesting aroma- ripe honey soaked banana and a touch of acetone. Some nondescript grains as well. Slick body and very sweet flavor. Caramelized fried banana soaked in honey- well textured though with a nondescript spicy back. Definitely unique and should be treated as a dessert beer or digestif.

Thanks a ton Joe for bringing this to Peter’s tasting. Absolutely thrilled I got a chance to try this one, despite how much it made me want to vomit. The pour was completely flat — the soda-bottle style cap was hardly even on — and looked like complete mud. The aroma was bearable, if not slightly enjoyable, with a load of banana bread, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, and spoiled juice all mixin’ it up. Kind of smells like what would happen if you asked your 5-year old to make a "cocktail" out of any liquids they could find in the house.

The flavor though, yikes, what a disaster. Completely undrinkable, one of the most vile things I’ve ever put in my mouth. I’d rather punch a kitten than drink this again. The tangy, spoiled, banana sweetness lingers in the throat for what seems an eternity. Fuck Bud Light Clamato, THIS is what they serve in hell.

Beautiful plastic bottle with wonderfully designed label. Aroma has sweet honey and banana with some garbage. Flavor is just not beer. More like an after dinner drink or port. I sipped warm, should be ice cold to be bearable. Interesting just not my type of brew.

Bottle courtesy of Joe at Peter’s tasting. Production date of June 3 2009. Pours a hazy milky brown, still with no head. Rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, milky glue, little candied banana. Cloyingly sweet. From the standpoint of a beer, this is disgustingly sweet. Viewed as a weird cordial though, it’s probably still too sweet, but bordering on acceptability. The mouthfeel is weird, feeling like there are little strings of banana floating about in it, and from the murky brown sludge on the bottom of the bottle, that may not be so far off. Finishes sweet and tingly. I’ve had worse.

Plastic bottle, thanks rickgordon. Murky, milky light brown, no head, by far the ugliest beer I´ve ever seen. Weird funky oxidized red wine aroma, with clear notes of vinegar. Medium bodied, no carbonation. Extremely disgusting, sour and rubberish.

May 16, 2009 (Thanks to LEE that brought this to me from Rwanda earlier this year)
Cloud brown color that is not tempting at all. Notes of smoked mahogny, hickory sauce and paint in the aroma. Perhaps a tiny hint of cognac as well. Tha taste is mainly unripe (green) bananas and something I can’t put my finger on. But that doesn’t care, it’s almost undrinkable anyway (in spite of the fact that I think it was slightly better this time compare to when I first had it two months ago).