Asahi – Tokyo Sumidagawa: Weizen (Japan: Hefeweizen: 5% ABV)
Visual: Darkened banana skin body, slightly hazy but not as much as normal for a hefeweizen. Banana insides yellowed white inch of a head in a creamy way that leaves suds.
Nose: Cloves. Orange skin. Peppery. Ripe banana.
Body: Creamy, cloves. Chewy banana soft sweets., Bubblegum. Lemongrass. Light chalk. Moderate hop character and bitterness.
Finish: Bubblegum. Lemongrass. Peppery. Light bitterness. Brown Bread. Light chalk. Fluffy hop feel. Milk gherkin.
Conclusion: Ok, on the eye this looked pretty standard weizen – not super cloudy but definitely not the lighter kristal weizen style. A slightly creamier head than you would expect but well within limits.
The aroma follows that up with a point perfect recreation of what you would expect from a hefeweizen – the cloves, the banana, the light citrus, exactly within expectations. No more. No less.
The body this is when things get shaken up a bit. I am probably wrong and just influenced by the fact I was in Japan at the time, but I could swear there is some Sorachi Ace hop influence going on here.
You still get the cloves and the banana, but with some lemongrass and bubblegum notes which are what make me think of Sorachi Ace, along with a just touch higher hop prickle and bitterness than is expected with a weizen.
A nice twist on expectations, which is double nice when compared to the by numbers take on the aroma and breathes a bit of life into this beer, while still giving a lot of what you would want from style expectations.
It is not all fun and games though – the body is just a touch thinner than would suit the extra hop character and carries a slight chalkiness with that thinner character that takes away from its quality. It makes it a tad less easy drinking and enjoyable than it otherwise would be.
Overall not bad, love the slight twist notes with the hop influence, but could do with a bit of polish to realize its potential.
Background: So, as I was walking over to the Tokyo Skytree I noticed a big sign “Craft beer Brewed Here”, which was a good start. Then I noticed it was right next to the Asahi building, the one that looks like it has a giant golden turd on top of it. So I guessed, rightfully, that it was an attempt of the bigger businesses to cash in on the craft beer name and take advantage of the fact there is no real definition of craft beer that limits it to small companies. Buuut, heck, I wanted to see what had changed in craft beer in japan in the decade odd since I was last there, and I had a few hours to kill later in the day, so I dropped back to try a few. Including this one, and a Kolsh and Stout that were both solid but not great. One thing you may not realize from the photos are that the glasses are tiny. Like even considering that the default pints are American sized in Japan, thus small compared to UK ones, these seemed even smaller. Seeing a German style stein but tiny was quite amusing to me for some reason, like it had been shrunk.
