Echigo Koshihikari

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Pours clear solar yellow with a thick and fairly persistent ivory head. Aroma gives up crisp malt and a hint of apple - and something else. From the rice? Flavor presents raw malt and sweet apple, not spectacular but refreshing. Texture yields fair body and peppy fizz. Crisp, clean, satisfying.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Cool label, and it's from Japan and all, but pretty much just an average lager. Seems better than Kirin and Sapporo, but doesn't stand out in any way. Smooth and refreshing feel, as this is a lighter beer with hardly any malt. Sampled this by the pool on a hot summer day, or would be an ok pairing with Sushi...but that's about it for me.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

Pours a light yellow, with absolute crystal clarity. Nice carbonation, but with an extremely short live head. Was a great item to come into after mowing my field, rather refreshing, but of limited interest as far as flavor goes. Just not very dynamic or complex but does what beer is designed to do, refresh.

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 4

Purchased at Ledger's Liquors in Berekley a few months back, and while it was meant to drink on a hot summers day, a cool fall evening will have to do. The aroma is subtle bready malts, a suprising touch of grass and even more to my suprise, nothing that makes it skunky, corny or chemically. Appearance is a pale golden yellow, crystal clear with practically no head whatsoever. Flavor was very floral. Almost to the point of soapiness (and I commented to my brother, who I was consuming it with that it was getting soapy as it warmed). Aside from that, this beer really didn't bring much else. Not horrible, but stricken with the "pale lager" curse of being a boring beer.

Aroma: 3 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 5

Saw several attractive 500mL bottles of this beer for sale whilst on a business trip here in Hawaii, and immediately grabbed three (one for me, two for my buds xlperro and Darren back in SoCal). But to be honest, after popping this open, and giving it a honest run for it's money, I'm not so sure the remaining two are worth the hassle to carry back with me to California!

As previous reviews have mentioned, this really looks quite poor in the glass. Zero head retention. And I've had more carbonation from still Cider or Mead than this. Looks don't mean a lot to me, but certianly not a good start out of the gate.

Fairly nuetral nose -- nothing to really set it apart from the rest of the dull lagers out there (from Japan and elsewhere), but nothing too nasty, either.

Very cheap and watery tasting, however. Some acrid, slightly warming notes in the mouth, that don't really fit with the intended style, me'thinks. Has something of a adjunct-y, cidery feel to it, that really doesn't disgust me, surprisingly enough, but doesn't give me much reason to find it endearing, either.

Pretty bad when I start to have pseudo-fond memories of Happoshu beers when I drink this, since at least those schwills were cheap, even by Japanese beer standards. I went to the official website for this beer (http://www.echigo-beer.jp), and assuming I'm reading my Kanji correctly, and exchange rates don't vary much, a case of these bottles would end up costing $46.00...!

Really an attractive bottle, with a rather unattractive, completely forgettable rice-y schwill within. Went a little better with my afterwork snack of Easy Cheese and Ritz crackers, but then again, is that really a good measuring stick...? ;)

Take a pass on this one, and stick to the mainstream Japanese biru's out there....

Music: Anata's "Under A Stone With No Inscription".
//TB

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 6

Yellow gold color. Small sized foamy white head. Aroma is grainy and sweet. A medium to light bodied pale lager. Malts are sweet and a little bready. Hops are slightly bitter. Smooth tasting, fairly average tasting Pale Lager. No bad or skunky flavors. And why do I feel I need to mention this fact with EVERY pale lager I taste? Interesting artwork on the label. Is there a reason it depicts three people harvesting rice? Mouthfeel is full. Finish is clean and crisp. Aftertaste is slightly sweet.

Aroma: 0 | Appearance: 0 | Mouthfeel: 0 | Flavor: 0 | Overall: 0

This beer is an easy review. Dry, clean, malty lager. Typical of high quality Japanese brew. I can't understand the label as it is all in Japanese but the beer in the bottle is excellent. Coors, Bud, and Miller could learn from these guys that rice belongs in the bowl, not in beer!!!