Bottle from Rakuten drunk at the Kobe Fireworks festival. It poured a clear gold with a thick white head of foam. I thought it had a clean noble hop aroma, crisp lightly bitter hop flavor, herbs over a mild biscuity malt base. It really matches up well with a hot summer evening, easy to drink & refreshing.

10th Anniversary Colonia. Part of the Anniversary 3-pack from the brewery via Rakuten. The anniversary beer. 5% super clear gold with a fast disappearing head. No real aroma. A crisp lager/pilsner body with minor hay notes & a clean bitter finish. My buddy Tony’s favorite of the 3 in the set. A pretty good lager. I am not a big lager guy but it is a top quality lager!

Anniversary 3-pack. 2.5% wow, very pale like a lemonade. Lemonade odor, nice lemonade flavor but it doesn’t taste like beer... Like juice, my wife loves it! I am surprised at the ultra-low ABV, you could drink this all day!

This bottle was brewed on my birthday which was a nice surprise. 6.5% bottle from the brewery via Rakuten. Anniversary 3-pack. It pours a dark gold with a quickly dissipating head. Nice sweet malt aroma. Rich thick malty sweet body, kind of one dimensional but good. Dry mild bitter finish. Reminds me of a golden ale I had yesterday... but it is better.

The last beer of the night is Baeren’s ESK. 5% What does ESK stands for ??? It is a kolsch according to untappd. It poured a clear gold with a white head of foam. No real aroma, the taste is of a nice light kolsch with mild hay/grass notes & a crisp dry bitter finish. Bang on for the style and better than the last few Japanese kolschs I’ve had! My favorite of these 3 was probably the Vienna Lager but all were decent.

5% a bottle I got from the brewery via Rakuten. The Grassy Ale has a fruity aroma with slight grass notes. Wow this beer is really bitter! My mouth is puckering, a clean bitterness... Slightly piney but mostly neutral bitter taste. Another unexpected twist from this series. I was expecting lots of grass, more lager flavor instead I got a lager looking beer with a hoppy bitter flavor. Where the lager looked like an ale, the ale looks like a lager! ———————2018 version———————- I didn’t hear much about this beer that was positive. No complaints about being badly made more that folks didn’t care for it. This made me wary of opening it so I’m finally taking the plunge months later. Nice clear gold with a pillowy thick head of foam. The aroma is fruity, bready and has some herbal/grassy noble hop elements though I find it much fruitier in the aroma. Pretty full bodied with a flavor of hay, cloves and grapes then a bitter grassiness. Definitely a pretty divisive kind of tasting beer I think. Having it months old made that bitterness balance out... ——2023 version——- Baeren Grassy Ale filtered (R) Matte straw gold with thick soapy foam. A slightly skunky herbal hop bouquet on a medium-full body. The filtered version seems to have stripped out some of that unbalanced bitter herbal hoppiness letting the malts come through more and balancing things out. Definitely the filtered for the win over the unfiltered. I boosted it from 3.2 (2018) to 3.6.

Order from the brewery via Rakuten, on sale as it is past it’s expiry date. It still pours a great amber color with a thick head of foam, no lacing. The aroma is mild & fruity. The taste is really nice, citrus then caramel malt and a crisp fruity bitter finish. I really liked this beer. It was easy to drink and a pleasent surprise as I was expecting a boring lager. The label says Baeren Wiener though which I felt was funny.

Bottle from Yamaoka. Rich, biscuity malt, sweet, bread, light leafy and citrus hopping. Deep golden with a high, fine head. Sweet and malty, plus a bit alcoholic. They call it a pilsner but I find it more like a heller bock. Very biscuity, some nice hop bitterness and a little hop flavor, some esters too. Burning finish, seems from alcohol but probably more from the hops. Hmmm. A strange one. Tasty malts, but quite one-dimensional. Rich and full. A bit too sweet for me, and not much of a summer beer, as they say it is. Tastes fine, but a bit out of balance and sweet.

On tap at Qbrick, it poured a clear gold with a fluffy head of foam. The aroma was one of white grape, the flavor was a pleasant bitterness to start followed by fruit mid-mouth which ended with a kind of rough grolsch or pilsner urquell type finish... not bad.

Both poured with a thick tan/brown head, the 2012 head is a bit darker. The 2012 aroma is port or wine like with plum notes & the 2013 is more slightly more of a chocolate aroma-much milder smell. The taste of the 2012 is very smooth with sweet syrup & chocolate at the front of the mouth followed by some alcohol warming and a burnt coffee aftertaste. The 2013 is less boozy, more like cocoa powder with a bit of a rough finish. I think the 2013 is a simpler beer, that one year of aging really pushes the beer to new heights of complexity!