Asahi Super Dry

Brewed by Asahi Breweries
Style: Pale Lager
Tokyo, Japan

Serve in Dimpled mug, English pint, Lager glass, Shaker

Bottle. Light gold pour with a quickly dissipating white head. Faint grain aroma. Somewhat dry on taste. Flavor is slightly sweet and grainy.

He probado esta cerveza muchas veces, normalmente cenando en algún restaurante japonés de la península o viajando en zonas de Asia... y que queréis que os diga, no merece comentario alguno. Una cerveza de gran consumo más.

(1 L oil can) Well described commercially. A perfect choice for sushi or Japanese meals to accentuate the food without overpowering. My choice for dinner at Blossom. Well played.

Bottle. Light golden, small and fully diminishing head. Light malty-grainy and lightly sweetish aroma, some grassy hoopyness. Body is light to medium, malty-grainy and dryish flavor, grassy hoppyness. Finish is average, malty and dryish, grassy hoppyness. Light and dryish lager, OK hoppyness considering the light body.

Can. Pours a clear yellow color with a small fizzy head. Aroma is of grains, faint grassy hops and some sweet malts. Flavor is again the sweet matls, grains and slightly grassy hops with a faint metallic note. The body is light with a watery mouthfeel. Overall all your usual below average Pale Lager.

Bottle. Pours a clear pale golden color with a white head. Nose is slightly sweet with weak grains and adjuncts. Light body, slight initial sweetness with grains and rice, just a hint of citrus. Finish is dry, only a hint of bitterness, somewhat metallic.

Light grain aroma. Clear light golden color with a small white head. Light flavor with a touch of bitterness at the end.

This is the first beer review to be written after I left Japan in the wake of Japan’s massive Tohoku earthquake. I’ve given pale macro lagers like these a lot of criticism, casting aspersions on their bland flavors, underwhelming palate, and criminal prices. They deserve it. Japan’s mass produced beers have unwaveringly followed the flavors and business models of other mass been producers, but at a higher price point. Even so, Japan’s mega-breweries are irrefutably icons of the Japanese economy. Every tiny restaurant, izakaya, bar, pub and even some homes are decorated with logos from these breweries. They are drilled into every civilian’s head, day and night, through print and television ads. Ebisu, Kirin and Sapporo stand atop buildings, high above the concrete labyrinth below in Japan’s metropolises, bright and gaudy, almost foppish with their lights apoplectically blinking, advertising the golden juice just a few paces away in some patient convenience store or bar. It is everywhere except your gut. For me, the most eminent of these dokodemo, itsudemo logos is Asahi. I have no evidence that Asahi has a larger advertising budget, or has more images of its logo smeared around inhabited areas per meter than its competitors. The difference between Asahi and other mass market brews is simple: the can. Asahi is raw, nostalgic, and industrial. It doesn’t hide its aluminum skin under paints or colors. When you look at a gallery of beers in a refrigerator, everything else is garbed in golds and colors, looking mature, but also exciting, and even a little desperate. The Asahi is saturnine, stalwart, and sudsy. It eschews the glitter and adheres to its roots - a metal can filled with beer. One more grade of sheer brutal manliness and Asahi would be serving their beer out of tin pales and slop buckets. It glows with the soft nostalgia of Showa, and is solidly dependable is an incredibly mediocre beer available almost anywhere whenever a poker game or a video game challenge breaks out. Budget constraints suspended my beer drinking hobby while I was in Japan, but a can or bottle of Asahi made a great drink when I was sitting down with a bowl of ramen, or lounging around with some senbei crackers. It’s a social and cultural pillar, and while my palate will beg me to stop, I know that future trips to Japan will see me shelling out yen for a can of the cold stuff.