Hitachino Nest Real Ginger Ale

Brewed by Kiuchi Brewery
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Ibaraki, Japan

Serve in Lager glass, Shaker, Tumbler

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Pours murky light brown with a tan head. Aroma is bursting with ginger, with some tart fruity notes. Flavor is much like the aroma, lots of ginger with a subtle acidic fruitiness which cuts the ginger a bit. Pretty smooth and substantial mouthfeel. You have to like ginger a lot to like this brew.

UPDATED: MAR 21, 2006 I won’t lie; the thing that first attracted me to this beer was the bottle. Maybe I was attracted to it because years of exposure to kitschy asian cutesy things. Maybe it was because I’m female and therefore culturally trained to squeal when I see these things. Who knows. All I can tell you is that my heart melted a little when I saw the label illustration, and I almost died when I saw the bottle cap. But anyway... Dark amber color with a large head. Smells mostly like candied ginger, and kind of burned the inside of my nose. Taste starts with a dominating, strong ginger flavor, with a bitter citrus finish and some sort of sweet aftertaste - sugar cane? Nice velvety texture. Doesn’t really seem like anything I’ve really had before. As strange as the beer might be, I liked it, though I can see how other people couldn’t take much of it. I’m just used to ginger by now I guess. Sadly, it’s a bit expensive and I don’t know if I’ll really have this beer again; at least not until I’m out of college.

Neat bottle from a brewery that makes a lot of interesting beers that are unfortunately way too pricey due presumably to massive shipping costs from Japan to New York. Nose is based on a subtle, buttery amber, though becomes dominated by a rough ginger essence that is pretty hard to take. After the up-front, in your face ginger ale taste (which is really nice), the flavor quickly becomes dominated by that same sand-paper ginger taste/mouthfeel. There are lemon and pepper notes but overall this is pretty hard to take. Wouldn’t do very well trying to finish a whole bottle of this myself.

330ml. bottle. Hazy dark amber color with a large beige head and small particles floating around. Sweet malty aroma with lots of ginger and a bit of black pepper. Mildly sweet flavor with the ginger being dominant, followed by a hint of pepper and citrus. Not bad, but ginger gets to me after half the bottle.

Beer pours a murky medium copper-orange color with an average-sized, mostly and quickly diminishing, off-white head. The aroma is delicate: Lightly malty with mouth-wateringly sweet notes of cookie, caramel and toasted grain; a Light hop note of citrus/grapefruit; and expressive miscellaneous notes of fresh, juicy gingerroot, cedar, cinnamon, nutmeg, a trace of honey and clove. The flavor is a little 1-D: Heavily sweet, lightly acidic, with an average-length, moderately warm, lightly acidic and trace-bitter finish and bready retros. The body is medium, the texture is watery-to-creamy and the carbonation is average. (Despite the volcano-action that happened upon opening.) A good melding of beer and additive.

UPDATED: SEP 1, 2010 Bottle (batch RG.10.05). Head is initially average sized, frothy, light brown, mostly diminishing. Body is hazy medium amber, bottle conditioned. Aroma is lightly to moderately malty (toasted bread, cookie), lightly hoppy (apricot), lightly yeasty (dough), with notes of ginger, orange peel, cedar, nutmeg, black tea, dried mango. Flavor is moderately to heavily sweet, lightly acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly to moderately sweet, lightly to moderately acidic, moderately bitter. Medium to full body, velvety texture, lively carbonation. Fresher bottle this time, apparently brewed in May of this year. Wow. What a beautiful ginger aroma, about as close to chopping up a fresh ginger root as it gets, just softer and gentler. Amazing complexity alongside that aroma, too...fruits, other root spice, etc. The best ginger beer I’ve ever had, I think.

11.2 oz. bottle. Pours a murky rust color with a thick, fizzy sand-colored head and some floaties. There is definitely some ginger in the aroma. It also smells pretty wheaty and malty with quite a bit of caramel and some lemons. Cinnamon and brown sugar are in there too. Medium-bodied. Very malty and sweet. Starts off with some caramel and ends with some slightly dry, wheatiness. Crystallized ginger is present throughout, as are other spices (especially cinnamon) that leave a gritty trail down the back of my tongue. A good bit of warming alcohol in the finish. I always appreciate something unique.

bottle, gushed out and spilled on the counter. cloudy orange/amber color with golden edges. tan sparse foamy head. aroma is sour grassy, some ginger-ale, and and sweet malt. flavor starts malty sweet, but is quickly overwhelmed by a root-vegetable like bitterness. some ginger flavor but just as much daikon radish and beet greens too. finish is bitter, maybe hops? can’t be sure. would go great with a bowl of tekka don sushi.

UPDATED: FEB 10, 2006 Bottle. This bad boy had a lot of carbonation and smells a bit sour, acetic. That subsides and it starts to smell like roots, fruit, and dough. The flavor is indeed ginger, sour, sweet, a hint of malt, hint of cedarwood. All in all, an interesting and very different brew, has a nice creamy mouthfeel and a good amount of flavor and complexity. Fun stuff, not an everyday beer for me, but worth having. It’s a translucent red-orange color with a huge cream colored head - pour gently.

(Bottle from <A HREF=http://www.ratebeer.com/Place/maine/portland/ target=blank>Downeast Beverage Co.) Cloudy golden brown with very large off-white head. Aroma of ginger and spice, touch of sour. No real lacing. Mouthfeel fairly full. Tastes quite heavily of ginger. There is also kind of a sharp bitterness, in addition to maltiness. These three flavors somehow aren’t interacting well, however. OK to try once. As others have said this probably would go well with sushi.