Kyoto Bakushu Pumpkin Happy Halloween
Kizakura Sake Brewing Co. Ltd. in Kyoto-shi, Kyoto, Japan 🇯🇵
Spiced / Herbed / Vegetable / Honey - Vegetable Regular|
Score
6.11
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Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 6
350ml can from Garden, Jiyugaoka. Pours golden yellow, some white foam. Nose has light spice, candy, freshly cut kabocha. Taste has some vegetable thing going on, caramel candy, Soviet lemonade and light dryness in the finish. Pretty underwhelming as far as pumpkin beers go, drinkable but feels weird.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5
2016 can. Fruity, perfumy, spicy nose, lemon, orange, pumpkin comes through quite strongly. Hazy golden color with a low, thick head. Fake fruity flavor, like a pumpkin and peach tart candy or something, strange spicing. Very thin. Pretty bad, but a bit too old as well, though it has been refrigerated for the whole time. Bitter spice finish.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5
2016 Kizakura Pumpkin Ale 5% Available at Isetan in Kyoto and Asahiya in Osaka. I had this at last year’s Bincan Fest by Minami Harborland in Namba. At that time it was a pretty one dimensional cinnamon bomb so let’s see how they do this year now that they’re canning it in these festive Jack-o-lantern cans. Served in a half-pint glass, it’s a cloudy brushed copper color with a soapy head of foam. As opposed to last year’s cinnamon overload, this year it’s very much on the fruity side and also unfortunately includes a dose of diacetyl but it doesn’t clash as much as expected - it just feels kind of muddled. Light bodied with a sweet candy flavor, for some reason I’m thinking candy corn. Underattenuated and with a minimal spice component. This is a completely different beast from last year. I think 2015’s version was a wholly spiced ale but this one is a kabocha beer. I applaud the experimentation and hope 2017’s version becomes a clean mix of fruit(pumpkin flesh) and spice. 2015 Kizakura Pumpkin 5% Limited brew for Halloween on tap at the Bincan Fes. It pours a nice golden orange. The aroma is liquid vanilla and possibly cinnamon. Very spritzy and sharp carbonation with a light body. The taste is sweet Pilsner malt, vanilla and pastry shell. Not super pumpkin but nice enough. I am glad to see them trying. 2023 Well this year Kizakura’a pumpkin beer seems to be barely available and has gone from cans back to bottles… I was going to start off by saying this is a pretty solid pumpkin beer but this year’s batch has gone downhill. The aroma is still really good with loads of rich roasted pumpkin. However, the body is watery and the pumpkin flavor minimal while the carbonation is too aggressive/gassy. I am pretty let down. 3.3—>3 or less