It's a great thing to have nice friends, and let me tell you--I've got a lot of nice friends. This past weekend Miyuki gave me an early Valentine's Day Present...a Valentine's Day edition of Hitachino Nest Beer's Espresso Stout. I found another site that says the malts used are Black, roasted malt, chocolate malt, pale malt, caramel malt, and the hops used are Saphir, Northern Brewer. Who knows if they are right. The site also says that Hitachino Nest is the most prestigious brewer in Japan. If they aren't the most prestigious, they are certainly near the top of the list.
Something I do know is that this beer is good. Dark as midnight with a fluffy brown head that's chocolate mousse-ish. Coffee flavor out the wazoo. I mean serious coffee flavor. I have a friend at home who would taste this beer and say, "Man, there's lot going on in there..." He would be talking about his mouth, and he would be right.
Nest has some excellent beers, and I did an earlier post singing the praises of XH. This beer didn't disappoint either. If you take away the slightly less-than-manly label--you got yourself a winner. Nest is available in many prefectures in Japan, and just recently infiltrated the beer cooler at Nate's local Atsumi Foods. Sadly, Nest has not made its way to Toei. I'd say it'll be here sometime between Jesus' return and 2312--whichever comes first.
This beer is worth your yen.
As a side note to all of the ladies out there who read this blog to see the amazing pics of me, you will notice that I cut off all my hair yesterday on the day off. That means you mom.
7 comments:
I'm glad that you like it.
can I have one too, but too bad I too far away.... The bottle do look abit for valentines with all the heart shape. Never tasted beer with coffee flavour... cheers!
The Hitachino Nest line is great stuff. They were on tap at the Great Japan Beer Festival last year and were **delish**.
I'm beginning to think you like flavoured stouts!
I've got a box full of different BrewDog Paradox varieties downstairs in the cellar. Shame you aren't here!
Espresso beer sounds good. Hopefully it's loaded with caffeine which will help you stay up late and drink even more, although caffeine and alcohol can both be hard on the stomach. Bazooka barfing, anyone?
Nasty sh*t. Don't like it, I say.
same with the Minoh Starbucks espresso stout. Urgh. Way too much espresso and not enoguh stout. I liek coffee. got every machine under teh sun in my kitchen. make a knock out cup of Joe, too, but I dont go and pour it on my beer. Just my two pence worth. Never cared for Nest, either. Can't understand why it's so popular in the States. Perhaps as more and more beer gets over there, they'll lose their market share. Gosh, I'm such a b*tch tonight!
Hitachino Nest probably gets its "most distinguished" nomenclature because it exports to the most countries of Japanese craft brewers.
For example, if you ever came to Chicago, you would wind up at The Map Room tavern where - look - it has bottles of Hitachino Nest.
I think its beers are generally in the middle. They're not overly hopped, and they aren't (usually) high in alcohol [lucidly, I need to try that XH from the sake cask].
It is bizarre that Hitachino Nest is here in Chicago, but it isn't where you reside.
Then again, I could scribe the same for Saranac, from Utica, NY. I found it in Shinjuku. But it isn't available here.
Post a Comment