Kirin's Muroka Beers...drink them.

Good Beer Country Boys pledge allegiance to Suntory Malts and Black Malts. This is a fact. However, Suntory is not the only macro that makes a product that can compete with the micros. Enter Kirin's The Premium Muroka. The label reads "Deep and rich taste from non-filtered process" and it is not lying. If you hold the brown bottle up and peer through it, you will see honest-to-God sediment floating around the bottom. This is a non-filtered lager by a major Japanese brewer. I'm drinking it as I write this. This beer just tastes good and has a very pleasing light-amber color.

You can find this in most kambini's and beer selling places for 200 to 250 yen. Luckily, I buy it for 205. At that price, it is a steal. This is a much better that Asahi Super Dry or Sapporo anything. The bottle says it is 5.5% alcohol, so it's got a half percent up on most of your other lagers. Yes, the sediment in the bottle does resemble fish shit that you might see floating in an aquarium, but I can assure you that it tastes much better. Actually, I am almost finished with the Muroka I am drinking now and, with an inch left in the bottom of the glass, it has a raw premium malts taste. Both this and the malts are all-malt beers, so it must be a sign of damn good all malt beer. This is something that Yebisu has never figured out.

I mean, Yebisu is expensive, so it should use the best ingredients. I don't know who their brewmaster is, but I picture their making Yebisu like using the bathroom in the middle of the night. You know you have to pee, you know where the bathroom is, but you can't see so you hit every piece of furniture on the way. Kirin are definitely working with the lights on when they make the Muroka.

Recently, a new Muroka has been hanging around with the tried and true Muroka in my local super market. It is Kirin's Season's Premium and has a similar label but with a green fade background and some hops hanging around to tempt a hop-minded drinker like myself. We'll start with the obvious. Yes, this beer has a little more hop taste than the regular Muroka. Is it enough to illicit pictures of hops on the label? No. In fact, I will call this beer Play-Action-Hop-Fake, PAFH for short. PAFH is a lighter beer than the Muroka, it is pours a golden honey color with much less sediment. If Muroka's sediment level is 10, this beer is coming in around 3. The fish-shit-lookin stuff is there, but not much of it. The initial taste is sweet and small-hoppy but the beer flavor pulls away fast leaving a honey feeling in your mouth. It's pretty enjoyable. This is not the same beer as the Muroka; it says the alcohol is 5.5, the same, but the body is lacking. Let me take another drink.

OK, so upon drinking more, I have decided that this beer would go great with heavier holiday food. I could drink this with turkey or a baked ham if I could find either of those in Japan, of course. It is light enough to not fill you up, but it is also sweet to compliment heavier, richer foods. I like this beer. And to tell you the truth, I was planning on slamming it in comparison to the Muroka. Drinking the beer while you type the reviews is most honest way of doing it. Hmmm, I think this beer cost me 250 yen. If it came down to a street drankin choice, I would go with the Muroka.

And before I forget, Kirin's Muroka series does have one more beer, though I haven't seen it in stores for a while. Two or three months ago I bought a Muroka White Beer that was susposed to be a Belgian style white. Don't buy this beer. Chances are if you can find it, you can also find Ginga Kogen. Buy Ginga Kogen instead. Concerning White Ale, Ginga Kogen makes Kirin their bitch.