Please Help Japan

Hot and Cool Beer

This is a weird one. A beer brewed to be drunk...hot...or cool! Ok, let's give it a go (with some trepidation, and little flutters of excited anticipation).

It's dark toffee/Coca Cola brown in the glass with a thick, yellowy white head.

I warmed it up in the microwave ("denji renji" in Japanese, as instructed to on the label, before any beer evangelists get all upset), can't remember for how long, about a minute I think.
It came out surprisingly sweet with an odd cool/menthol like sensation across the tongue but warm everywhere else. This "cool/menthol" sensation is difficult to describe but kinda metallic.

It's quiet light in the mouth, with the odd "cool/menthol" sensation making it feel almost weightless.

At first, not too keen but it grew on me.
I scored it 89, warm.

Now...on to the cool beer.
(I should point out that I didn't let the warmed up beer cool, I poured half and half, heated one half, drank the other cool).

When cool it has more weight to it but still light. Not sweet at all, slightly bitter in fact.

When cool, it's a fairly ordinary drinkable ale. Nothing too outstanding but definitely pleasant to drink.

Cool, I'll score it 88, so a fraction below the warm version.

So overall, when hot/warm the strangeness of this beer and the odd "cool/menthol/metallic/weightless" mouth feel make this an interesting and worthy beer.

Give it a go, great for the Winter months (I reviewed this in January, writing the review as the Japanese summer approaches in May, go figure).

Very easy to drink.

As a side not, the label recommends to have this beer (warm) with honey or cinammon sticks. I didn't, so can't comment.


The website on the label is Orae.net, which has an English version (they just run it through google translate). Which is worth checking out for the great Google translations, "On Rainy Days, The Towels....To appreciate things riot occurred as a rainy day".
(They give you towels in the restaurant when it rains).
Anyway, as often happens with large beer companies, especially Japanese ones, it's difficult to know what's going on, and the beer the website is printed on, doesn't even appear on the website. But, there you go.

13 Drinkers Online - Cheers!