Qing Ming
Off Color Brewing

 

super weird and super good, 2017 vintage, holding up predictably well. its golden through most of the pour with some viscosity and decent clarity until the last quarter or so, not a ton of head on it, but not still either. it smells lightly tart but thats not there in the flavor at all, white wine and ripe red berries to me, the koji yeast also evident in the nose, which i love in beer, wish we saw more of that. the honey is strong too, floral and grassy and the essence of high summer, some light alcohol too, but this isnt a prominent feature of the beer to me. the flavor is great, pretty darn honey driven, even though this isnt sweet to me at all, some body, dried flowers, green tea, really sexy and good, smooth and slightly bigger feeling to me, especially with the lighter carbonation, it hangs around on the palate just a bit, some botanical bitterness and a vinous element, but not sugary at all. clover and dandelion, subtle stone fruit, pear, apricot, red apple, really unique, slightly dried fruity with the honey, but not baked or desserty because the grain profile is quite minimal. not sour or funky but definitely interesting on the ferment with the lush sake sort of character to it, love koji as a fermenter, and its apparent here that it does well over time in the bottle too. robust and unique beer, probably approaching the end of its peak in terms of cellaring, but this is a gem, nothing quite like it out there that i am aware of, and expensive as this was (about 20 bucks), i feel good about the buy. celebratory and fancy and another treat from these guys! also sick to collaborate with the field museum (and i dont think this is their first together...), not too many breweries doing that!

 

Thank you Knapp85 for this sharing this bottle.

A - Hazy dark orange hue with thick lacing , light carbonation, and alot of floaties settling towards the bottom of the glass.

S - Bready aroma along with some bubblegum and white grape.

T - Follows the nose. A little yeasty, white grape skin, some pear, lightly boozy.

M - Thick and soft mouthfeel that coagulates on the tip of the tongue.

O - Really enjoyed this beer.

 

 

 

 

750 ml bottle into a tulip glass. Bottled 6/22/17, had 7/28/17.

Pours a cloudy yellow, with a half inch head and some spotty lacing. Active carbonation. Smells of yeast, malt, rice, a grainy aroma, honey, spices, light vanilla and peaches, a bit of a lactose aroma, a little funk. The taste is malt, yeast, grain, honey, light peaches and plums, some rice on the aftertaste. Very smooth, well carbonated, a solid lighter body.

Liked this a lot. Not radical, though. Good, subtle flavors, great malt base. Fun one to try.

 

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a slightly hazy golden amber with a half finger off-white head with great retention and thick lacing. Aroma of wheat (must be millet, actually), honey, apple and pear juice, spices; very close to a tripel profile with the spices similar to coriander. Flavor is semi-sweet millet (tastes like wheat to me), honey, apple, rose hips, pepper; finishes drier and spicy. There is a little mead similarity, probably due to the honey, but the profile is closest to a Belgian tripel, and a quite nice one at that. Medium bodied with light creaminess and sharp carbonation. Somewhat drier and more complex than a braggot, this tasted like a hybrid between a semi-sweet mead and a tripel. The ABV is of tripel strength and the ingredients all seem to be appropriate for this profile. The rice probably contributes a little sweetness, but its flavor is mild, as usual. It's been a while since I've had sake, so I'm sure there are some sake notes in this, although the mead resemblance is most clear to me. This is very nice and would be recommended to those who like tripels, sake or mead. Very nicely done. They had me at the Field Museum connection, but this stands on its own as a flavorful, interesting and satisfying beer. If the ancient field workers had anything like this, I doubt much work would have been done and early civilization would have been delayed.

 

 

This one is really out there, truly a unique beer. Smells of honey soaked earth with slight smoke, rice, malt, dark fruit and wet flowers but has a smoky pungent aftersmell. Taste sees more fruit accents come to light, plum, grape, peach tea with good honey and earth melding. Feel is thin, sweet, but somewhat wild, a clearly new world edition of the braggot. More interesting than good

A: The beer is slightly hazy dark golden yellow in color and has a light to moderate amount of visible carbonation. It poured with a short white head that left a collar consisting of large bubbles around the edge of the glass and a thin film on the remainder of the surface.
S: Light aromas of earthy and spicy yeast are present in the nose along with some hints of honey.
T: Interestingly enough, the taste has some resemblance to that of a Belgian tripel with some candi sugar-like flavors that may be attributable to the rice and honey. There are also notes of spices and hints of dates. No alcohol is perceptible.
M: It feels light- to medium-bodied, smooth, and a bit clean on the palate with a moderate amount of carbonation.
O: This is a very interesting and unique beer—I was thinking it would be a bland rice beer but it actually had a good amount of complexity and the taste almost resembled a Belgian tripel. The beer is also very drinkable considering its strength.

Serving type: bottle

 

 

Another out-of-the-box experience from Off Color... always interesting, sometimes good... and Qing Ming is both.
As told to me by the woman in Off Color's bottle shop, the pre-revolutionary Chinese had 3 dominant styles revolving around rice and spiced by the traditional kitchen. Qing Ming is one of those three. (And with global warming likely to push barley and wheat fields further north and perhaps to be replaced by rice, we should pay more attention to these 3 styles.)

But since global climate change is unlikely to be solved by beer.... Let's get back to this beer.

My takeaway: rice can make a decent backbone (after all, sake is brewed also.) Looking different, Qing Ming also Smells different. The rice imparts a subtle aroma that is an interesting background for those different spices used. Tastes are totally pleasant and the yeast used makes Qing Ming even more different. Feel is sweet, but pleasantly so. A well constructed beer and, given the differences in culture, a very, very good introduction to what the brewer thinks may have been.

OA? Try this. And if you want more analysis, see emerge007's review.
And as a Big Picture guy knowing that the Chinese have figured out the future better than us , I can't avoid thinking that Qing Ming is something we should be open to.

 

 

Pale golden color, lightly hazy, frothy head of sticky foam that leaves behind some spotty lace.
Aroma is interesting, florals and fruit, dates and plum. Taste is similar, yeast forward with floral and fruit notes.
Medium bodied with a light sweetness, paired with the higher abv it came across like a fruited tripel almost.
All the esoteric ingredients seem to work well, it was less 'out there' than the label would have you believe.
I expected it to have a sake note from the rice and koji, but it didn't really. Unique stuff, worth a try.