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.

After four-and-half years of living in Japan, I am packing up my futon and heading back to the US of A. It’s been a good run, but I’m finished. My internet access is being shut off on the 12th of January. I leave the Land of the Rising Sun on the 23rd.  I wanted to get one more review while I still have a reliable connection and before I’m reduced to wardriving on the left side of the road for access to the intertubes.

About the only previous experience I have had with “bitter” is my ex-husband. BA-DOMP, SHISSSHHH! Actually, I’ve had bitters and just not realized it.  Hello! Can! of! Boddingtons!  And why is a bitter not bitter? That stout that I reviewed last time was more bitter than the bitter I had tonight. Oh, why don’t you beer people tell me this stuff? Well, they do. The tour guide I spoke with in Cairns Australia said “Victoria Bitter is all right, but there’s better stuff.”

And the better stuff category should very well include this nicely done Lake Towada Bitter. 350ml, 5% ABV.  This premium or strong bitter is bottled in the same fashion as the aforementioned Lake Towada Stout – in a brown bottle with a pretty blue label and that hybrid pull-cap thingy on top.

Pulling off the cap and pouring the beer, my first thought was “This beer sure smells nice.”  A sort of laid-back beeriness about it,  attractive and approachable.

My pour was an opaque coppery-brown with a light brown foamy head.  A nice bouquet of toasty malt with ruby grapefruit and lemon overtones and a the smell of clean t-shirts,  (this is a good thing, trust me) when the glass was given the old sniff-test.  Much more pleasant to sniff than dirty t-shirts (or socks)! The nose had an appropriate bit of hops overseeing the whole affair.

Mouthfeel was clean and dry, maybe just a touch too watery at the front.  Taste was toasty malt with a hint of mineral perhaps a suggestion of cinnamon in there, and gently citrusy fruitiness that offset the almost-sweet malt. No weird aftertaste or feel present and it felt nicely weighted – not too light and not too heavy.

Typical of bitters is low carbonation and this beer certainly was lightly carbonated. I felt that it flattened out a little too quickly but it may have been related to my inattentive pour which sloshed the beer around a little more than it probably should have been. A smidgen more fizz would have been nice, but the beer certainly wasn’t slouching around and was not flabby or too soft.

I really liked the level of toast to the malt, which seemed to be evenhanded and thoughtfully done. The hops were present in an appropriate amount,and although I felt like something felt like it was missing or withheld, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  Whatever that missing piece was, it wasn’t a showstopper.No big whoop there.

Lake Towada Bitter is a beer that is  easily drinkable and enjoyably so. I’m usually a one bottle person, but after finishing this beer, I wanted another, which is something that doesn’t happen often. This beer would be terrific with pretzels (soft or hard) or a basket of well-salted fries, but I really just wanted another all on its own, no foodstuff tagging along on the second date.

However, at almost six dollars a bottle with the current exchange rate (curse you, strong Yen and damn you, weak American Dollar) I had to content myself with one for this go around.

TMI: I got the burps after finishing this beer for some reason. Surprisingly though, I was like “Hey, still tastes good!”

All in all, a highly sessionable winner that makes me go “Yay! I”d like another one!” *

Kampai!

*if only they didn’t cost six bucks.

FIRST! Hahahahahaha! Lame.

Happy New Year!

New Year’s in Japan is a major Buddhist holiday and is called Oshogatsu.  New Year’s here is home and family oriented. Most of the country businesses shut down for at least three days, sometimes more. The arrival of the new year is celebrated during the first two weeks of January, during which “firsts” of the year play an important role.  A “first” is called hatsu. Everything from the the first temple visit of the year (hastsumode) to the first business day (goyohajime), is duly noted.  So technically, I can call this my hatsuhihyou, the first review of the year. FIRST!

What I have for this review is Lake Towada Stout, locally made in Towada. 5% ABV in a 350ml bottle. The bottle’s label features a pretty winter scene of Lake Towada’s famous Maiden statue. The bottle cap was interesting, a hybrid between a cap and a pull-tab as seen in the picture. I’ve noticed lot more of these caps in the last several months.

My initial reaction to my first whiff of the pour was “burnt band-aids”.  After doing a little reading, in the future I will use the term “phenolic” to describe a nose similar to this, but I think “burnt band-aids” catches the imagination, even if it doesn’t sound polished.   I was a bit concerned that I got a bad beer and since I was put off by the smell, I didn’t have a drink right away. A few moments later,  the phenol gave way to an almost-but-not-quite-burnt toast scent, along with a a bit of coffee.

Getting the beer into the glass, I found the dark, black-brown color of the beer to be  handsome and very visually pleasing.  The pour resulted in a rich, creamy, coffee colored head rising up, but settling quite quickly.  It was very hard to see bubbles, but they were there.

I like bitter and sour tastes but my first taste of the stout was so surprisingly bitter I was taken aback. For the first half of the glass, I wasn’t really sure about the beer and prior to doing reviewing probably would have foisted it on my spouse or poured it out but I wanted to really work through the beer and challenge myself.

I made sure the beer wasn’t too cold and I took my time with the glass and found that the patient approach paid off . The stout did a reverse-origami sort of thing, several flavors unfolding and revealing themselves. By the end of the glass, I found a  lot of  nice things going on in the brew that I really liked. I was pretty excited and proud of myself for sticking with it!

The carbonation was nicely done; active but not turbulent,  I particularly felt the fizz at the sides of my tongue. Mouthfeel was smooth but not overly creamy with a medium-rich body that was substantial without being chewy.  Almost too bitter at first, although this settled down as I worked through my glass.  Smoky overall with tastes of coffee in the middle, dark toasty malt with perhaps a bit of burnt toast or very dark caramel. Nutty and toasty in the mix as well as a nice touch of hops. Despite the intial band-aid (phenolic) smell of the beer, no weird aftertaste in the very long-lasting swallow.

Near the very end, I enjoyed a piece of gingerbread spice/dark/white chocolate bark with the brew. I love pairing chocolate and beer, but if that’s not for you then this brew might be good with a hearty beef stew.

I got to the end of the glass, and noticed some sediment at the bottom.  Peering into the bottle itself, I noticed a ring at the bottom.  This leads me, in my very inexpert opinion, to think the brew was bottle-conditioned. I’d welcome corrections and explanations if I’m mistaken.

Overall, a solid dry stout, nicely made and good for a chilly, windy New Year’s Eve.

Kampai!