Sugomi
Sapporo Breweries Ltd.

Appearance: Hmm. It's been a while since I've reviewed a happoshu, and now I know why: they're all the same. Or at least, they all look the same. Extremely pale yellow beer with a decent, snowy white head. Bubbles actually exhibit a surprisingly high level of drag, but nevertheless it's obvious that this is one thin brew.

Smell: Smells a lot like Draft One without the soy, which is to say not good, but not bad. Gassy fusel alcohol, weird vegetal sweetness, vaguely citric hops. Meh.

Taste: Argh, this is like drinking hoppy gasoline! Odd, really, that Sapporo could have made a brew this bad out of nothing but malt, hops, unmalted barley, and sugar. It does live up to its "bitter and sharp" label in the finish - it's quite nice and hoppy, actually - but everything leading up to that is an utter disaster of macrobrewing.

Mouthfeel: Sparkly and fairly clean. What you'd want in a happoshu, I suppose.

Drinkability: Unfortunatly, the bitter and sharp finish can't redeem the nasty everything else. Sorry, Sapporo, but I won't be buying this again. Stick to what you're good at: Yebisu.