Yakurai Resort: Kamiigo Amabieeru (アマビエール) Pale Ale (Japan: American Pale Ale: 5% ABV)
Visual: Clear yellow gold body, and a thin white head that leaves suds. Some small bubbled carbonation.
Nose: Cake sponge. Apricot. Flour hop character. Vanilla.
Body: Dry, moderate bitterness. Flour. Dried banana. Sour-dough. Dry vanilla custard notes. Soft apricot. Chalk touch. Slightly watery when cool. Pineapple. Slightly more banana as warms.
Finish: Gritty bitterness. Dry. Flour. Good level of hop bitterness.
Conclusion: This is a reasonable pale ale that needs a bit of warmth to get going as it can be a tad watery when overly chilled, not bad even then, still solid, but this definitely benefits from some heat.
So, how does it go at its best? Well it is pretty heavily attenuated. Dry and with the bitterness harsher than you would expect for a pale ale. It feels like a hop style expecting more malt to push against. Heat really helps the flavours here, giving a soft pineapple that comes out and gives a tart release where it just has a kind of flour and charred bitterness when too cooled down.
I don’t have a huge amount to say on this one. It isn’t remarkable even at its best, and when chilled down it is quite flawed. Let it warm though and the attenuated character does make it very drinkable, and while the bitterness is still bracing no longer the assault it feels when the body is not strong enough to face it, and yes that softy pineapple makes it much more refreshing.
So, don’t chill it too much, don’t expect too much and you get a solid enough APA. Not really much else to add to that.
Background: Ok I actually have no idea what this beers name is, there are so many words on the label. The katakana and hiragana on the label you can see translates as “Kamiigo Amabieeru” “Yakurai biiru” (Yakurai Beer) and “peeru eeru” (Pale Ale) respectively. As you can see I have not translated the first one. Kamiigo I initially had no idea of, Kami can be a spirit/deity and go can be language but that doesn’t seem to match – if there were Kanji it would give easier ideas of the translation. However later Kamigo was the name of a dam that we visited nearby and seems to be the name of a town, so could be where they are based. If anyone help it would be appreciated. Amabieeru seems to be a pun アマビエ (Amabie) is a Japanese mermaid, which I’m guessing is what the cutesy pic is of, Biiru as mentioned is beer. So looks to be punning on the two words. Mermaid beer. The label only lists the brewer as Yakurai, but everywhere online I’ve seen them listed as Yakurai Resort so I went with that. The same sites list it as Amabieru, missing off the Kamiigo part. That is a lot of words for a beer I picked up at a truck rest stop in Japan as it was a local beer and had a pretty cute label. Yep that was why I grabbed it, cute label. I am a simple person.
