Kinmugi Tōshitsu 75% Off
Suntory

 

Been seeing quite a few “xyz % off” beers in Japan lately and this is one of them. 75% less sugars but like shigg said, surprisingly quite good for a beer (happoshu) of this kind. Actually quite better than these types used to be back in the day when there were only the green or the grey Kirins in this category… but yep, yep, yep, it is a happoshu, nothing to write home about but still, I was pleasantly surprised how decent these low calorie brews can be.

This beer came courtesy of snaotheus.

Poured from a golden can into a glass. This was my first experience drinking a happoshu, so it's difficult for me to rate accurately within the style, but I did my best based on what I imagined it would be like.

I was surprised by several things during this experience. The grain is what gives beer is color and this is a 75% reduced grain beer using only a golden wheat (translated off the can), so I expected it to be the lightest colored beer I've ever seen. Not so! This brew has a very nice golden hue with a fairly thick head. Very fizzy and light in body, which I did expect, but another surprise was the sweet cereal aroma coming off the head. This is a low malt beer, but the grains to peak though on the nose.

Flavor, also as expected, was very mild. What I did not expect was how clean and pleasant it was. Up front it feels a lot like drinking club soda. The most prominent flavor comes from the CO2, but as it washes to the back of your tongue the hops finally take a front seat, leaving a nice bitter piney flavor. The grains return again in the back, but only for a moment before you're left with a dry clean finish.

I really thought I would dislike this beer, but I have to admit, I enjoyed it. This would be a great lawnmower or beach beer of it we're available here in the US. It almost felt like a counterpart to a pale lager in the same way a session IPA is to a proper IPA.

This is not terrible for a happoshu. The beer promises 75% less sugars, but it doesn't skimp on taste. It's really pretty refreshing for the style, and it doesn't carry any goofy smells or metallic aftertaste.