Tenshi No Shizuku (Tsubaigeruto Reebe)
Otaru Winery Beer

Appearance: Looks something like a champagne cocktail, clear fuschia-rouge ruby with long, fast strands of fine bubbles that rise into a fizzy white head that roars like a crowd doing the wave, then quickly settles down into quiet nothingness.

Smell: Fruity and vinous; Concord grape juice and sec Champagne with sweet, honey-like pale malts in the background and a caramelly popcorn-ball buttery character. According to the label, this beer does contain hops, but they're totally undetectable.

Taste: Mild and harmonious but simplistic and unexciting. Surprisingly beery with a somewhat pasty corn starch sweetness, a touch of fresh grain malt flavor, and a light, mildly tart and pleasantly vinous grape juice presence. Hops lend a touch of acrid bitterness that triumphs in the clean, dry finish.

Mouthfeel: Light as a feather, frothy and powdery dry, somewhere between a dry Champagne and a well-attenuated ale.

Drinkability: This is a tasty beer, balanced, novel, and festive. It does lack complexity and robustness, and it would benefit, I think, from an all-malt base as the corn starch lends a somewhat intrusive funky sweetness (on second thought and second glance at the label, this might be due to the use of koji - sake yeast). Overall, however, this is a nice, refreshing fruit beer. Recommended.

This beer is blended with "Tsubaigeruto Reebe" wine, which the winery also produces, besides beer. I think it's a German red wine, but I'm not familiar with it.

The color is peach, with a quickly-passing light pink head. The smell is interesting, with big notes of fruit and wine, i.e. grapes. The taste closely reflects the aroma, of wine and fruit--like one might imagine a beer mixed with wine. Light, with a light hop finish. Whisps of alcohol.

Not terrible--I expected much worse from this beer called "Angel's Dew" ;(