Koji Il Riso Yellow Koji
Birrificio Del Ducato

a collaboration with kuichi of japan, makers of the hitachino nest beers, this is amazing, and i am kicking myself so hard for only picking up this yellow edition instead of both that were available. hope its still there this week! brewed with a special yellow sake yeast, some rice, and a whole lot of attention to detail, this is stunning beer overall, quite unlike anything else i have had, even other beers fermented with sake yeast. the color is pale yellow, almost perfectly clear, the yeast is caked in the bottom of the little genie bottle, but i pour hard enough to loosed a bit of it up. great airy white head on it, lots of bubbles, high sex appeal visually. aromatically its simple at first, the slightly sweet yeast, some starch from the rice in the grist, pale barley, pils type, and a little bit of honey. as it warms, the smell starts to get more complex, orange blossom, highly floral, champagne yeast, white grapes, and even sake itself. the flavor follows the nose, simple when its cold, but enormously complex when it comes up to temperature a little bit. its so carbonated and so dry (and the bottle is so small) that i have a hard time fully grasping all thats going on before each sip is gone, and before the bottle is empty. the yeast is amazing, and the fermentation and bottle conditioning was obviously very patient. there is nothing at all like this out there, amazingly high quality, super unique, and a gem of a culinary beer. they should sell this in magnums, i could have drank 20 bottles of this...