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!