Expired Kure Beer

DH wrote about Kure Beer in Hiroshima on Friday, January 16. That means he visited Kure Beer the weekend before, sometime around January 10 or 11. He bought Miyuki and I Kure's Alt, Weizen, and Kujiro Ale. I received these beer last weekend. He's not the fastest man alive.

This posed a problem not because I am impatient or ungrateful to DH in any way, but because Kure's bottled beer has the weirdest expiration date system. Each bottle is stamped with two dates. All three of my bottles had 06-01-09 and 28-01-09 on them. Apparently, these are the dates between which you may drink the beer. What? Three weeks? It takes longer than that for most beers to get good.

Out of the bottle, the Weizen was cloudy, as a weizen should be, and tasted pretty damn good. The Kujiro Ale (a kolsch) was also cloudy and tasted almost identical, though a bit lighter than the weizen. The Alt was where things took a turn for the worst. Maybe it was because the beer was past its 3 week limit. Maybe it is because DH likes dirty things in his mouth. Maybe it was because a big shovel full of dirt had been pitched with the yeast. However it is explained, the Alt that I drank definitely had a ground taste to it. Miyuki likes to call this a 'bush' taste. What I tasted falls more under the "rained on tumbleweed after a roll through Deadwood" flavor. It was probably better on draft.

DH should also be commended for bringing Miyuki and I some Ise no Kune Beer and a 500ml bottle of Ise Kadoya's Brown Ale. I haven't drank those yet. We did drink the Sinto Beer he brought. That stuff is good. I could drink it all night. Not to heavy, not to light, good on hops, tastes all right.