Heisei: jyouzaisenjyou (常在戦場) West Coast IPA (Japan: IPA: 6% ABV)
Visual: Dark apricot coloured body. Off white moderate sized frothy head and lots of small bubbled carbonation evident.
Nose: Bready. Light sulfur. Peach. Orange skin. Dried banana. Wheaty bitterness. Carrot and coriander.
Body: Bitter. Sea breeze. Slightly salty. Quince. Sour grapes. Dry. Brown bread. Peppery. Pink grapefruit.
Finish: Sharp lemon. Quince rakia. Gooseberry. Dry brown bread. Wheaty bitterness. Coriander. Salty. Peppery.
Conclusion: I’m not quite sure what this is. I’m hesitant to call it its listed style of west coast IPA, but I am also hesitant to call it not one. A dilemma, it is very odd. In fact, more than most beers on this trip, it reminds me of the quirky beers that defined the scene a decade go when I was last in Japan. It is nice, while I have enjoyed beers this trip, I miss that very different vibe they had back then – they are more traditionally polished this time around.
The aroma took me a while to work out why it was so familiar and yet so strange. It feels like an IPA meets a hefeweizen. Bitter with fruity hops like an IPA but wheaty with faint spiced and dry banana notes like a weizen. Like I say, strange.
Needless to say I was even more confused when I took my first sip and found it a slightly salty and sea breeze character matched against that weizen and hop style mix. Reminded me a bit of Goslar’s more mellow salted wheat beer take on a gose, matched with tart grapes and other fruit notes from the hops.
Then it headed out into a bitter finish – peppery and spicy, still just a touch salty and still with tart fruit notes.
As you may have noticed nothing I have described so far has matched a traditional west coast IPA experience and yet … The malt is out of the way, the bitterness is high and it has tart fruit notes. For all it is very non standard it does hit the big three west coast IPA points for me.
More importantly, is it any good? Eh, I have to admit it is more interesting than good. I am fascinated by it but probably wouldn’t return to it for another bottle.
Take a look at the notes, see if you think this is an oddity that you would want to indulge or avoid.
Background: This is an odd one I found in a store in the train station of Niigata Japan – the store has a huge wall of sake serving machines and for 500 yen (about 3 pounds) you can get 5 tokens to sample them, with each serving being between one and three tokens depending on cost. It is a great idea and if you are near I highly recommend trying it. They also have a pretty good alcohol selection in general, including this west coast IPA. Yes I was near the end of the trip and going back to my old favorite of west coast IPAs again. The bottle art is pretty cool, but the actual name is hidden on the back of the bottle to make my life harder. The name translates as Permanent Battlefield, of so a google tells me. Not what I would have guessed from the bright colours of the label.
