Hitachino Nest Real Ginger Ale

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

Brown pour with a hint of orange. Off white head and lace. Large ginger aroma dominates. Semi sweet malt, ginger, and a hint of bitter. Aggressive carbonation. An overall drinkable beer.

(bottle - 330 ml) Cloudy orange pour with a puffy white head. Aroma is light with a very strong hint of ginger and some light malts and sugar. Flavor is a ton of ginger at the start that mixes with some other random spices, I think I detected cloves, malts, and some light hops at the end. Finishes spicy with a lot of ginger lingering.

Thanks to Lithy for sharing this one at decaturstevo’s Februmergency Tasting. Pours a hazy dark orange/amber with an off-white head. Tobacco & leather aroma. I didn’t smell or taste any ginger, but it was getting late in the tasting.

Bottle at the Febmergency tasting. Pours amber with beige head. The aroma is candied ginger, some sugar, and a little bit of chemical burn. The flavor is ginger, some various spices, chalky caramel. Semi-dry finish. Not very exciting.

Golden amber that smells, well, like Ginger ale. Tastes of Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and molasses with a tart citrus finish.

Bottle at decaturstevo’s Februmergency Tasting for those of us that missed out on Sexual Chocolate ’09 thanks to lithy. Translucent reddish amber with small light tan head. Massive ginger aroma with a sweet kick to it. Flavor is of course ginger, but with some spicy clove and vanilla. Good for what they are trying to do, but I’m just not a fan of ginger beers.

Draft. Pours an amber body with a white head. Note of ginger, lightly fruity body with some caramel. Allspice, clove, ginger, root, and sage. Lightly floral bouquet.

Despite my credentials in Japanese studies, I’ve had a difficult time warming up to Kiuchi brewery’s style. Aside from their New Year’s Ale, which I fondly recall being a sweet and spicy brew to joyfully and flavorfully herald the New Year, most of their product line has been too strange or adventurous for my palate. The Red Rice Ale was a miserable, drinkable sekihan, and the Weizen was very average. I’ve been on a Japanese culinary kick as of late, keeping fresh ginger roots in my refrigerator at all times, and relishing the opportunity to stick my nose into its freshly grated pulp, so I had some budding enthusiasm for this beer. But the Ginger Ale (not to be confused with ginger beer) takes the same strange and awkward tact - like a new born deer, it sort of stumbles around, crumpling to the ground in an inelegant dance of confusion and discord. It pours with a dense but short creme brulee colored head, topping a very murky, hazy and lively brown beer. The aroma is strikingly herbal, pushing brown sugar, ginger and some more savory herbs like parsley and sage. I sense a blood relationship with the New Year’s Ale here, but an inferior phenotype. The flavor attacks from a different vantage point, with a bubbly, tangy and frankly somewhat shocking flavor profile. It has a yogurt tang familiar to Korean soft serve gripping the tongue, and then the ginger ale hits you with cinnamon, clove, and generous squeezes of both lemon and lime, making the rest of the flavors somewhat wan in comparison. Tastes a bit like those lime flavored beers that were popular awhile ago. The ginger ale doesn’t like like a beer, it’s not very drinkable, but it certainly is unique. Noticeably absent from the eclectic crowd of flavors is the ginger, which I think remains relegated to the aromatics. I’ll continue to hope for a repeat of the New Year’s Ale from Kiuchi, but this is not it.