Harbin Beer

Brewed by Harbin Beer Company (Anheuser-Busch)
Style: Pale Lager
Harbin, China

Nice light honey skunk-hop smell....some head on the pour but dissipates to just a white ring....the taste is like a stella/heineken mix but a tad more subdued....actually quite nice and refreshing!....a surprise seeing as the other 2 chinese lagers weren’t so great, and the price was good too. worth a try if you like pale lagers!

Judged as a standard american lager. Sweet/sour malt forward with very low hop character, some corniness. If you serve in a VERY big glass you will get some caramel notes, but hard to pick up any other way. Totally clear, yellow, low retention white head. Super clean flavor has sweetness, low bittering, light corniness, possibly rice and slightly detectable hoppiness. Very watery, but not watered down (hope you can understand that). Definitely better than the first bottle I had. Texture is super light, from bittering to carbonation texture. Too light for style, but felt texture was good vs. flavor. Did not get metallic tones others had noticed. Overall, glad I tried this beer again. Not a great beer, but I remember really despizing it the first time around. There’s more complexity than I remember, and I have to give these guys credit for some of the best packaging I’ve seen.

Bottle. Pale golden colour with a thin white head. Bready aroma. Some sweetness and corn in the taste. Not much body. Bit of a nothing, inoffensive enough beer - which of course makes it a superior chinese beer.

Nothing special, and overpriced. Nice looking body, decent, not exeptional aroma, bland, run of the mill flavor.

Faint yellow colored body. White head clings around the edges of the liquid. The stench of recently dead skunk greets my nose, making me fear the upcoming sip. Sweet, honey malt taste with lots of metallic overtones and a hint of skunk.

Bottle in HK. Pours yellow with thin foam head. Not much aroma other than a hint of apples and a trace of sulfur smell. Taste is a little sweet, corn and other adjuncts. Oily and fizzy mouthfeel. Aftertaste is rotten vegetable and metal. Nothing special.

Bottle (from Sainsburys). Mild unpleasant flavours which are only on the verge of being noticed served cold. Not much to recommend but not a complete loss.

Clear yellow appearance with a large, white head and a fair amount of lacing. Fresh straw aroma before the adjuncts take over. Sweet malt taste, modestly hopped (where do they find fresh hops in China?), with corn syrup and vegetal flavors. Clean, crisp finish. Attractively packaged, but still, sort of like travelling to Beijing and eating at McDonalds.