Tuesday Tasting: Myoko Kogen Brewery

Last week I looked at Gotemba Kogen's beers this week I am taking a look at another resort brewery: Myoko Kogen Brewery which is located in the Alpen Blick (ski) Resort in Niigata Prefecture. Once again, I ordered a trial tasting set featuring three beers(as far as I know they only make three): a weizen, a dark lager and a pilsner. Apparently, their recipes were formulated with the help of a brewer from the Czech Brewery, U Fleck.

Myoko Kogen Weizen 5%

This time I started with the weizen.It pours a beautiful cloudy straw gold with a thick foamy head in my weizen glass. Big yeasty aroma of cloves & banana bread or plantains - makes me hungry! Light zesty effervescent carbonation on a thin body which is possibly a touch too watery. The taste is quite good, clove spiciness, wheat notes & a bit of banana sweetness. Tasty much better than that Gotemba Kogen Weizen I had last week.

Myoko Kogen Dark Lager 5%

Cola brown pour with a beige beige head of fluffy foam that dissipated fast leaving behind dabs of soapy lacing. The aroma is mild straight from the fridge, roast malts & soft chocolate notes. A smooth medium body gives it a pleasant mouthfeel. The taste is sweet, roasted barley, bran flakes & cocoa powder with an exceptional roasted grains + mild raisins flavor. This beer makes me think of the breakfast cereal raisin bran but in a very good way. An interesting dark lager! As good as or maybe even better than the weizen, my only critique is the aroma is too subtle at first but once it warmed up a bit I got a touch of molasses added to the bran.

Myoko Kogen Pilsner 5%

It pours a clear gold with a foamy white head. The aroma is earthy spicy Saaz with sweet graham cracker likemalts. A bit too sweet in the nose for my taste. The body is ultra soft & light. Incredibly crisp taste, light earthy bitterness & green hay from the malts. Very summery, exceptionally drinkable - really good stuff. 

All in all, this is a very solid brewery that took me by surprise. I'd never heard of them before. If you're looking to enjoy the Japanese mountainside for hiking or skiing I would say head on over to the Alpen Blick Resort for all that plus good beer!

Tuesday Tasting: Gotemba Kogen

For this Tuesday Tasting I'm gonna take a look at Gotemba Kogen Brewery. This is brewery is part of the Gotemba Kogen Resort in Shizuoka Prefecture near Mount Fuji. According to Craft Beer in Japan, the brewery was founded in 1995 and is made up of 2 different breweries: one releasing bottles the other cans. I got my hands on a Tameshi Kurabe Set (Try & Compare Set) via Rakuten. This set included a Pils, Schwarz & Weizen. I had seen this beer online for awhile but hadn't tried it, for some reason I felt it didn't seem so interesting. Probably, due to never seeing it in specialty beer shops or hearing fellow beer geeks talking about this brewery I was under the impression they just made typical omiyage(souvenir) beers with little merit.

The Set

The Gotemba Kogen Pils 5%

The Pils

Can direct from the brewery via Rakuten, just 11 days old. 5.5% served in a pilsner glass. It pours a crystal clear light gold with a thick white fluffy space. Earthy, grassy, light noble hop aroma. Nice smooth moothfeel on a light body. The taste is a refreshing crisp grassy flavor with light bitterness & mild crackery malt notes. A surprisingly nice pilsner that hits all the right notes with a great finish, it’s very refreshing with bang on a proper pils profile without any one thing overshadowing another. An impressive start to this tameshi set! Then again I wasn’t expecting much...

The Gotemba Kogen Schwarz 5%

Served in a glass beer mug. It pours a dark cola brown with a thick tan head. The aroma is roasty dark malts, dark bitter chocolate, soy & has a certain savoury quality to it. Medium-light bodied with a roasty chocolate flavor. Easy to drink with no off-flavors. Another solid beer from Gotemba Kogen.

The Gotemba Kogen Weizen 5%

 A slightly cloudy straw gold pour with a foamy white head leaving behind fairly minimal lacing. The aroma is cloves & a butterscotch yeast quality to it. The taste is sweet, yeasty, light cloves and a mild buttery flavor. That buttery taste is diacetyl an off-flavor in a hefeweizen. It is an ok beer but not as good as the schwarz & pils which beat my expectations whereas this disappointed me.

Oh well, 2 out of 3 beers were quite good. The weizen wasn't bad per se but it was the only one of the three with a production issue causing an off-flavor. The Pils really took me by surprise, the schwarz was incredibly drinkable so they should both be given a shot if you have the chance. Someday I'll head up to the Gotemba Resort and give the all-you-can-drink deal a go at their restaurant!

Tuesday Tasting: Harvest Hill Brewery - Harvest no Oka

Harvest no Oka, Harvest Hill in English, is one of those peculiarly Japanese kind of breweries. Scattered throughout the Land of the Rising Sun you'll find agricultural parks as tourist attractions many of which have their own small breweries on site.

Harvest no Oka is one such place located in the southern Osaka city of Sakai. As it's main focus is as a tourist attraction(see the animals, make pottery, ride the rides, etc.) where people, especially families, can come for a taste of the outdoors and farming life the beer is not a main priority for them. 

You won't really find them outside of Harvest no Oka except at local festivals like Namba's Craft Beer Live. That being said if you want to try their beer you can always do like me and order a 6 pack from their webstore for 2200 yen plus shipping.

the 3 varieties in the 6 pack

 This 6 pack includes 2 bottles of each of their main varieties of beer: a dunkel, a pilsner & a rye lager. Here are my reviews:

Harvest no Oka Pilsner (Suki ya Sakai)

5% served in the appropriate pilsner glass. It pours a straw gold with a thick fizzy white head - classic pils/lager look. It has a soft grassy nose followed by a sweet sugary graininess. I don't dig this beers general sweetness. 

Smooth almost slick mouthfeel. The taste is pretty good, the first thing is that sugary sweetness which is a turn off for me but it is followed by earthy lightly bitter hops, some mint & a solid but light cracker malt backbone. Crisp & refreshing, OK.


Harvest no Oka Munchner (Honma mon ya Sakai)


I served this 5% dunkel in a beer mug. It pours a reddish-copper with a thick foamy light beige head. Nice nutty notes, weak caramel & some grains almost to the point of being bready. 

Thin to medium bodied... somewhat watery. The taste is pretty good, roasty grains, nuttiness finishing on a smooth caramel before giving you a tangy sweet malt finish. 

It reveals a bit of nutty caramel in the aftertaste. I like this more than the pilsner, I think it's better balanced. Good aroma, nice taste but the light body is a hair too thin. Overall, a decent dunkel.

Harvest no Oka Rye Lager (Kodawari ya sakai)

Served in a pilsner glass, it poured gold with an orange tint to it & very opaque. A thick head of foam formed but it dissipated fast & left behind virtually zero lacing. Not too surprising as I've heard rye inhibits the formation & retention of heads of foam. 

A malty aroma rose from the glass composed of sweet grains with a slightly bready character to it plus some rye & a bit of fruitiness. It has a hint of sourness lurking in the back of the aroma. 

Light bodied the taste is sugary, lightly bitter with bready rye or cracker notes... I feel a certain sourdough vibe from this beer. Fruity in the finish, with just the slightest hint of cardboard in the finish/aftertaste. Quite crisp. I find this beer to be a bit too thin bodied & sweet for me but is generally within the style guidelines of the BJCP. An alright rye lager but for a better Japanese Rye Beer seek out the Baeren Rye seasonal.

If I had to rank these I'd probably go Munchner, Rye Lager then pilsner though the differences between the rye lager/pilsner is minimal... Definitely the dunkel was the most satisfying of the three though all were decent examples of their respective styles.