Series - Lager Love (part 3): Relax Time in the Raw

The family.

Kawasaki, Japan.  Asahi's Jyukusen is one of Asahi's smaller-scale "premium" brews--like the Ebisu is to Sapporo. "Relax Time" is the slogan imprinted on its classy sepia toned label. Popping open the lid, I'm welcomed by that sexy whiff of hop, visible, if only for a moment, as a whisp of vapor escaping into outer space. The Jyukusen, like most Big Four lagers, is strong on European/German style hops, very aromatic without tasting too hop-heavy. Flavor wise, it's light but nicely balanced. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that despite it's "premium" label pomp, it's actually an adjunct beer (in addition to barley, it includes rice and 'starch' on the list of ingredients). But dare I say--it's quite a delicious adjunct beer. Not that it has huge flavor, or super robust body, but it smells lovely and fresh, and importantly, there's no weird sharpness or tangyness that tends to manifest in many adjunct beers. In the case of the Jyukusen, it seems like the adjuncts are actually there to craft this clean, yet slowly and elegantly matured beer. It's actually hard to come by a beer that is so light in flavor, yet so nicely balanced. The bitterness is on the bold side, but other than that, it's very non-obtrusive, yet subtle. It should make an excellent pairing with some crispy, salted grilled fish like mackerel or red snapper.

Anyway, if you want to pair a beer with Japanese food, maybe it's not so terrible to have a beer that has a bit of rice in it. One Woman loves Big Four beers with any form of rice cracker snackie.

But there's more to love about this beer--it's nama. Unlike American mass produced beers, the vast majority of the Big Four beers in Japan are sold unpasteurized whether it's in bottles, cans, or kegs (in the US, generally, only kegs are widely unpasteurized. US microbreweries do sell unpasteurized beers). In Japan, these unpasteurized beers are labeled "nama" (which means raw, or alive) or "draft" (a bit confusing, since, in English, draft refers to beer (usually unpasteurized) that's served from a keg.



Musical pairing: Asahi, in Japanese, means "sun rise." To complement that, here's husband and wife duo Les Paul and Mary Ford's with "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" ... in case you were in need of the ultimate musical lightness and effervescence in black and white. (Extra--two things I love about this video: the old school Listerine ad at the beginning, and the illustration of Les Paul's guitar which looks like a ukulele! Mahalo.)

Above, the Asahi Beer Hall designed by French architect Phillipe Starck