Harbin Beer

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

It’s a lager. That’s about the only positive thing I can say about this beer. Otherwise, it’s a standard lager. Nothing special at all.

An aroma of stale corn wrapped in wet paper. A nice clear golden pour. An initial sweetness followed by a sourish bitter. A fizzy, thin palate that lends to make this a not so good beer. Not terrible but it’s damn close. If it tasted as good as it looked instead of tasting as bad as it smelled it would be a good beer. Not a pale lager fan but this one just isn’t very good.

Harbin; green 11.2 oz green bottle with a nice green foil cover over the lid, very classy looking. Label is nifty looking and higher class. I am anticipating a typical pale yellow american style lager. Pop the lid to get an initial skunky veggie aroma. Pour is typical of a pale yellow american lager and the a aroma now fades to a yeasty beery smell. Very good and well behaved on the beginning taste bud experience but as you continue to drink it has more of a bite. There is a hoppy bitterness in there that makes its own statement. It sticks with you continuously. Bubbles continue to rise from within the glass, a good indicator of its carbonation. Though there is a slight bitter bite to it, this is nothing like a pale ale. It definitely has more personality than your typical lager. Beer is OK except for that bitterness on my uvula. Finish is slightly discordant and it hangs on for a few minutes after the lest swallow. About an average lager in my book, buy a Schmidt’s its much better.

Golden light yellow pour with some nice head and some lacing. A bit astringent in the overall flavor, but a nice malty aftertaste that went very well with the Chinese meal. Good bubbles throughout.

Smells kind of like a ricy lager, like say, Bud! Taste is pretty disappointing for me. Ricy and thin, not a winner. Just nothing there.

Bottle. Fat Cats, Leicester. Golden with a small head. Aromas are sweet grain with light fruitiness. Flavours are fruity with caramel and sweet grain. Very typical of the style.

Bottle. The beer pours to a sexy orange golden body with a foamy/frothy white head. So-so lacing that slides down. The aroma is crisp, lightly fruity, grainy silage. Definite lager yeast aroma too. The flavor is up-front lager yeasts that turn into an aromatic rice and crisp graininess. Light fruitiness like a pineapple. This brew would have gone nicely with the vegetable stir-fry I had tonight. The palate is medium bodied, clean, and fitting. Easy drinking.

This bottled brew marked 20060513 B1622 from a bottle shop poured a medium sized head of foamy finely sized bubbles that were mostly lasting and left behind a transparent straw yellow colored body and a good lacing. The aroma was malty and grassy. The mouth feel was tingly at the start and at the finish. The flavor contained notes of malt hops and grassy. Not one that I would buy again.