Hitachino Nest Lacto Sweet Stout

Brewed by Kiuchi Brewery
Style: Sweet Stout
Ibaraki, Japan

Got some sweet chocolate in the aroma.Pours black with a very large tan head.Lots of sweet chocolate in the flavor.Mouthfeel is a little thin with a chocolate finish.

Poured black, black, black with an over-generous, tan head that lingered forever. The aroma is one of musty sour milk with slight, roasted malt undertones. The taste is very mild...slight roasted malts and chocolate impressions linger briefly before giving way to a thin, sour finish. It’s quite different. I enjoyed it, but I doubt many sweet stout fans would find it enjoyable.

The Japanese sense of “sweet” is a culturally obscure one. Traditionally the Japanese meal doesn’t have dessert, though a few sweet bean cakes might be served around mid-afternoon. Despite this historical bulwark, the Japanese have fashioned together some of the most painfully sweet snacks, drinks and candies I’ve ever had. These don’t make appearances at meals, but are rather more something you’d ashamedly pick up at your nearest convenience store. Strawberry milk juice, melon bread, and a host of pocky flavors are but a few. That’s why when I saw the Hitachino Nest Sweet Stout I was somewhat dubious about how sweet it would actually be. The head alludes to nothing, saturnine and dark with no trace of a head. It is emotionless, stoic and almost grim with its unwavering apathy. The nose is more expressive and open, treating the olfactory to slightly stale pipe tobacco, the smell of old wooden furniture, peat, oats and a light whiff of gourmet coffee. The aroma is, to be honest, a bit strange with the senescent sofa smell, but it’s definitely unique and interesting. Points for individuality. The taste recedes from the adventuresome aromatic character, keeping the same qualities but much dimmer and quieter. The only differences lies with a little potato starch in the aftertaste where a dry chocolate coaxes the mouth to a simple finish. Hitachi Sweet Stout is a semi-flat beer, semi-thick beer, lapping across the tongue like a heavy muddy water, but not so much that it coats it. It is, in other words, very average and, for that unexciting. Considering the tastes the mouth feel could be much heavier and a little more engaging, in the way that watching a mudslide or watching someone cut open a half baked chocolate cake is. It’s a sensual obsession with dark, black and more-than-edible primordial ooze, and it would fit in here very nicely. Alas, it is not present. It presents some new flavors, but, in a very un-Japanese fashion has wedged itself into a middle ground of safety rather than choosing a new extreme to explore.

Pours an opaque blackish brown with a lacy tan head. Milk chocolate and coffee aroma. Medium body and carbonation. The taste has roasty malt, nuts, chocolate, with a semi-dry coffee and cream finish. Milk stouts are never going to be my favorite, but (relatively speaking) this one has it going on.

33 cl. bottle, dtae-stamped "55.5.8." Dark reddish pour, Coke type bubbles along the side of the glass and a big spongy brown head that quickly dwindles. Taste brings up a big sour milk overtone. A slight chocolate roast, but not enough to overcome the unpleasant forst impression. This may be an old bottle, or the taste may be just what the brewers intended, but either way, I just don’t like it.

12 oz bottle into an English Pint glass. Pours a dark opaque black with a light tan head that surprisinly sticks around for the whole glass. The aroma brings a pretty straightforward milky and milk chocolatey smell to it. Little hints of a roasty malt are also detectable, but not by much. The flavor is very similar in context. Starting on a sweet malty note it moves into a milk backed sweet malt note. At this point a tiny bit of that roasted malt becomes apparent tossed with cocoa powder, before swishing back into a lactosey milky milk chocolate finish. There is some sort of hint at vegetables in the middle of this brew that I can’t quite put my finger on (it comes out for a second and then dissappears quickly). A tiny bit of coffee lingers on the end. Very light on the palate, medium bodied, and a very silky texture. This is simply an overly sweet and simple tasty treat. Great for desert or a nightcap brew.

Bottle of Indeterminate Size: Poured almost jet black with some red hints when you hold it to the light. Head was very thick and large, slightly off-white and cratered. Aroma is quite odd - caramel and roasted malt and an out-of-place pine smell that just seems wrong. Still, I hold out hope. The flavour is unlike any stout I’ve had thus far with definite caramel sweetness and roasted malts, almost no discernible hops. Worse yet, there’s no body to speak of .. must be skim milk. Disappointing.

Bomber. Pours almost black with a thick, bubbly, tan head. I thought the aroma was a bit light for a stout with notes of roasted malt and coffee. Roasted malt is the dominant flavor with some sweetness from the milk sugar, and chocolate. Not at all bitter. A bit thin at the finish. Tasty.