Morimoto Black Soba Ale

Hello Belching Monkey Readers!

It’s been about six months since I repatriated to the good ol’ US of A and it is time for a beer review.  One of my favorite things to eat in Japan was soba noodles, particularly zaru soba (cold noodles) in the summertime.   Zaru is the word for a wicker basket in which soba noodles are traditionally served.  Interestingly enough, the similar-sounding saru is the Japanese word for monkey!

What I’ve got for you in this review is Rogue Brewery’s Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale.  Morimoto-san may be familiar to those of you who watch Iron Chef.  Rogue has a series of signature beers featuring Morimoto’s name.

Rogue’s Morimoto Black Obi Soba  Ale comes bottled in a  big, brown, rather handsome 22-ounce bottle.  Printed directly onto the bottle, the label is spare and very asian-inspired. The kanji (in white) reads morimoto (forest origin/source) and resembles calligraphy brushstrokes. a subtle hinomaru (sun circle/rising sun) is featured in the background. It’s very elegant and a nice bit of graphic design.

The description of the beer, taken directly from the bottle itself:

A darker version of our Soba Ale. Roasted malts provide a rich nut-laced flavor, while the 3 hops blend to provide a refreshing zest. 10 ingredients: Roasted soba, 2 row pale Munich, c-15, c-60, and Weyermann malts: Horizon, Sterling, and Cascade hops, free range coastal water and top fermenting Pacman yeast. 12.05 Plato, 30 IBU, 75.2 AA, 36.0 L

And for those of you who aren’t familiar with an obi,  the obi is a sash that holds a kimono closed.  Monochrome black obi are only worn as part of funeral attire called mofuku (Obi associated with martial arts are a slightly different matter) so most black obi feature other colors. During my stay in Japan, I worked for a lady who owned a kimono shop and I learned how to wear kimono.  I also wrote about them here. So for those of you who want to see an obi, a kimono, and a pudgy gaijin (foreigner)wearing them,  here’s me, sporting one of my kimono outfits, featuring a black-and-silver obi.

Okay, enough with the fashion show and on with the beer review.  Pouring out the beer into a standard pint glass, the ale was very dark brown, like a dark walnut, not quite black.  A bit matte in color, with a manilla-folder colored head that settled quickly.  My pour (first) didn’t have much lacing, however, a second pour which was given to my husband did.  I found this a bit baffling, but chalked it up to shoddy bartending on my part.  The pour was not overly effervescent, was a bit cloudy and while not uninviting, it didn’t really make me say “Wow, what a visually beautiful beer.”

Taking a good whiff of the beer in my glass, I noticed the bouquet was mildly ester-y (is that a word?) not untypical for an ale. Not a big, blowsy bouquet, so I had to stick my nose pretty far into the glass to smell anything, even when I let the beer sit to see if the frangrance would bloom. There were notes of toast, malt, and buckwheat (duh) along with a slight brown sugar scent.

I didn’t care for the first taste. There was a bit of a weird initial note, not buckwheat like I’ve had.  Finally after thinking about it and getting almost to the end of the glass, what I tasted was something similar to rhubarb.  A little research showed that this actually makes sense, as buckwheat (soba) is a member of the rhubarb family. Please don’t be put off by my description here, it isn’t really “directly” rhubarby and doesn’t taste anything at all like Great-Aunt Edna’s rhubarb pie that everyone loathes.  Interestingly enough, that soba/rhubarb note didn’t have a strong showing in the bouquet of the beer.  In fact, my bottle didn’t taste as quite its fragrance suggested it would.

The soba ale has a medium body, and the swallow was smooth, silky across the palate for most of the swallow, with a bit of tannins near the end. The soba taste reappears again towards the end, without the rhubarb suprise that I got from the initial sip.

I found this suprisingly filling brew more like some of the porters I’ve enjoyed in the last few months, but not as balanced and maybe a bit mixed up as to what the featured flavor should be.

Black Obi is easy enought to drink and is rather filling, but my personal opinion is that despite this, the beer is better off paired with food, rather than as a stand-alone sippable. I would pair it with some kind of grilled beef – if I had a Tsubohatchi bar/restaurant near me, I would select the Tsubohatchi steak with shio (salt) sauce.  For a vegetable option, I would choose a mushroom risotto made with shittake mushrooms (ah, Italian-Japanese Fusion Cuisine).

Soba Ale is nicely made, but could benefit from a little fine-tuning, to make some of the elements a little less ambigious. As such, I would give this a rating of 79.

Kampai!

Jodi (to follow me on twitter: jodi_trautman)

PS – I’ve read that the brew has been discontinued, but haven’t confirmed it,  so you may want to grab a bottle to try if you see it in your favorite bottle shop.