Review of Hitachino Nest White Ale
Posted By Ken Wednesday, 31 March 2010 21:56
Last Saturday Zach and I attended a beer breakfast put on by a local beer group called the Hoosier Beer Geeks at Brugge Brasserie here in Indy. It was a great event to enjoy some good food, meet other beer enthusiasts, and try a plethora of different beers, getting a nice buzz before noon. The first beer selection we were offered was Hitachino Nest White Ale. Read on to see how this start to the breakfast and the day went.
Ken's Review
Taste: C+ I don't have a lot of experience drinking Japanese beers, but I hope they are not all like Hitachino Nest White Ale. The initial taste was very sweet and bitey, and settled on your tongue with a kind of bubbly champagne-like feeling. I didn't mind the aftertaste and the champagne feeling. What bothered me was that initial burst of sweetness. If you can get past that, then everything after in a taste of this stuff was not that bad, and almost worth the experience to get to that back-end.
Packaging: B+ The packaging on this beer is pretty much what you would expect from a Japanese beer: crazy pictures and not really anything that makes much sense about the beer itself. Pretty much all of Hitachino's beer labels are the same with the exception of some different coloring, the owl on the front of the label, and the actual name of the beer. Nothing too impressive here.
Value: ? Not sure here what this stuff runs since it was a part of the breakfast. But if I find out a pricing range I'll be sure to fill this part in later.
Drunkeness: B- Hitachino Nest White Ale comes in at a 5% alcohol content. Not a bad way to get started on the breakfast, but definitely not an option you want to keep rolling with if your goal is to get smashed. Number one, it would take a while with this stuff. Number two, the refund of this beer has got to make you want to claw out your own throat.
Overall: C+ While the White Ale wasn't terrible, I can't say I can forsee any reason to choose this as a drinking option personally. I can normally dig white ales, but this one just had too much bite and sweetness for my liking, so unless you enjoy this combination it may be worth just avoiding period.