Sapporo
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When most Americans think of Japanese beer — if indeed they were so inclined to think about Japanese beer — they don’t think of the delicious varieties of Hitachino Nest Beer. Instead, if they can name a Japanese beer, it’s probably Kirin Ichiban or Sapporo.
I hold Sapporo to the same fine standard as Coors — surely it’s a decent beer for its style and production, but not something I’m inclined to enjoy or seek out. But to stick with the peculiar rules of my one-a-day-with-no-repeats beer challenge, beers such as Sapporo definitely have their role . . . when there’s nothing else to drink.
Saturday found me dining out with my wife in Boston. As her early birthday dinner, we enjoyed a five course meal overlooking the city from a 52 storey vantage point.
The food was great, but the waiter wasn’t very keen on beer — when I asked for a unique beer, he offered me a wonderful beer from Germany called “Hacken-sack”.
I assume he meant “Hacker-Pschorr”, which I have already enjoyed this year. Seriously, a Hackensack? Had I asked if they carried the English beer Hobgoblin, I’m sure he would have offered me a “Hoboken” instead.
Sapporo was the only “unique” beer he could summon, so I ordered the beer and downed it as quickly as I could. The reserve port I’d enjoyed just moments earlier was shamed on my behalf.
Here’s what I’ll report — this rice lager was grainy and bitter. In fact, the bitterness was stronger than I had remembered from past experiences with this beer. The hops provided little in the way of flavor, but the beer was certainly more flavorful than many weak American lagers.
But after drinking a martini and four different glasses of wine, my taste buds were too overwhelmed to parse the subtleties of Sapporo.
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