Tomato Bibere
Echigo Beer Company Limited

Appearance: Deep, nearly opaque red-coral body with almost no head to speak of, but I have to give it points just for novelty as I have never seen a beer anywhere near this color (with the possible exception of the Great Dane's Watermelon Wheat).

Smell: Tomatoes, tropical fruits (guava, papaya, passion fruit) and berries, and light grainy malts. A very enticing and juicy nose.

Taste: Sweet and tangy with an unexpected dry finish. Not too acidic, sharp, or sour in the least, well-balanced between fruity tomato juice and a solid Kölsch-ish base. Malts are light but solid, sweet, and grainy, and hops provide a pleasant, cleansing dryness.

Mouthfeel: Light, clean, and crisp, but carbonation is a bit too rough. Could stand to be smoother.

Drinkability: This is an interesting and very tasty beer that could have easily turned out to be gimmicky and poorly made, but instead it is well-balanced, delicious, complex, and refreshing. An excellent breakfast beer, and a perfect match for cheddar.

Aroma is powdered malt and sweet berry accented fruit. Color is red/pink and cloudy with a lazy red tinted white head. The fore is spritzy and sweet, but definitely tomato flavored. It’s a sweeter variety of tomato than I’m used to though. This reminds me a LOT of New Glarus Raspberry Tart. Has that same wholesome wheat cake tasting base beneath and a spritzy sweetness up top. The tomato is very well incorporated into a malty grain accented base beer and that spritzy chmapgne like carbonation gives the beer an effervescent and light feel. This was a huge suprise and damn tasty. I’d drink this again in a heartbeat.