Hitachino Nest New Year Celebration Ale

Brewed by Kiuchi Brewery
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Ibaraki, Japan

2007 Vintage

Pours an extremely cloudy amber with a huge, and I mean huge head with big bubbles and some lacing. Aroma is fantastic... SO much spice going on here - nutmeg, vanilla, sweet orange peel. Taste does not disappoint - what a remarkable beer! Some of the spicy notes remind me of a complex scotch, there is so much going on there that I can barely scratch at the surface! As it warms it displays more barleywine style malting, extremely sweet. Body is silky but not thick, which keeps the sweetness from overwhelming the palate. Good carbonation. What a heck of a beer - many thanks to TheCheeseMan for the trade!

(JAPAN) Courtesy of AFI96, thanks Waylo !!! This brew has a amber color with a mega foamy white head. The aroma is of vanilla and cinnamon with a spritzy mouthfeel. The finish is dry but very pleasant, and the 9% is well hidden .

330ml bottle poured into a snifter. Deep amber in color with a humongous beige head. I got some vanilla and cinnamon in the smell as well as some caramel. Flavor is very unique. Reminiscent of Purple Sweet Potato Pocky if anybody has ever had that before. Like a vanilla spiced candy that somehow remains on the dry side. I wouldn’t call it great but it was definitely interesting, drinkable, and one of a kind.

5-19-08 bottle
Thick unfiltered glowing orange with an ivory beige head that is huge in the pour. Smell is sweet strawberries. Flavor is sweet malt with a doughy finish. Decent body and mouthfeel. Not horrible.

(Bottle 33 cl) Courtesy of markgugs. Hazy amber golden with an off-white head. Astringent, fruity Brettish nose. Medium body with fruit and spices being dominant. Astringent, bitter finish. Unusual but quite interesting. 160408

11.2 oz bottle (2007)...poured a murky dark toffee color w/ a HUGE tan head that produced thin laces down my glass...Took a good 10 minutes for the head to decrease a a drinkable level. The nose was quite fruity, SPICY, woody, and sweet. The flavor reminded me of wassail. Again, very spicy (coriander and nutmeg stuck out), with sour apples, some caramel, yeast and that vanilla that sticks to the back palate. The mouthfeel was kind of odd...fizzy and sticky, and the beer had a sharp bite. This is definitely a winter beer as it warmed me up right away!

Pours dark amber with a ridiculously large head that had to be scooped out. Obviously way overcarbonated. Smell is oddly spiced and hard to describe pineyness, but not in a hoppy way. Taste is strange, woody spice again, and not particularly good. Mouthfeel is atrocious and not just overcarbonated and prickly but turns to foam as it hits the mouth and doesn’t even feel like liquid going down... Can’t recommend this one, unfortunately.

Enormously large off-white head. Cloudy brown body. Wonderfully spicy aroma... pretty awesome. Taste is fruity and full of the spice. Indeed it is pretty good. Medium body. Hella complex.