Harbin Beer

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

Came in a bag. It poured yellow with a very mall white head. Nose was mild and malty, and mouthfeel very thin and light. Flavor was very mild as well. No finish...more like tap-water. Drinkable, but that is all.

Not sure why I bought this beer. Perhaps it was the fancy "tissue" wrapped bottle that drew me. But I’ve yet to have a Chinese beer that wasn’t a huge disappointment, and this didn’t do anything to change that string of bad luck.

The beer pours out a really nice golden hue, with a decent two-finger thick head. Aroma was slightly skunked, some corn and a small bit of grains. Flavor of corn, a bit on the sweet side so it did have a decent malt profile. The soda-water like mouthfeel with it’s over carbonation was also hard to deal with. Not a horrible beer, and it does live up to it’s style points of a pale lager. Just wayyyy overpriced for the little flavor you get.

Canned from a supermarket in Shenzhen, China. Light golden coloured, medium white head. Grainy nose. Very weak flavour, little bitterness, but no annoying sweetness. General lack of flavour, but that’s what one can expect from Anheuser-Busch...

20.3 oz green bottle-A clear yellow with a loose two finger head. Aroma of sweetness, citrus, and floral. Taste of nothing but sweetness and corn with a floral finish. Better than expected.

Pours light golden and a fully receding white head. Aroma of toasted malt, bread, and rice. Taste is watery, lightly malty, but very flat tasting. Mouthfeel is thin bodied with spritzy carbonation. Not impressed.

Aroma of skunkiness, poured with a decent head, very light color, little to no flavor at all, not really offensive, like some Pale lagers I’ve had, just nothing to it, water has more flavor!

From 1 pt. 4.3 oz. green bottle with a freshness date on the back label, yeah, I know, the package is kind of cheesy, but I did like the symbols on the back of the white wrapping. Poured a clear macro lager golden with a foamy white head that settled into a thin lacing. Clean aromas, sweet lager malts, floral with a light cooked corn. Decent macro carbonation, not overly fizzy, which is a plus with me, and a very softly crisp, smooth light bodied mouthfeel. Overall, clean, but bland tasting, thin sweet malts, I have a feeling there is some rice malts in this, a subtle cooked veggies with a light lemony hops mixed in with it, just enough sourness to balance the malts and a dryish sweet malty finish that, thankfully, doesn’t linger in the palate. Drinkability is not that bad, but I lowered it because of price, I paid $1.99 for this bottle, which seems cheap, but when you compare this to other macro lagers in price, like a six or twelve of PBR, Bud or Tecate, it’s not a bargain.

Bottle. Pour is a golden color with a bit of a white head and aromas that at first are kind of skunky hops and later fade to adjunct malt. Flavor has a bit of a Heineken feel to it with the hops presence and then gives way to sweet adjunct that bordes on nastiness.