Beer Review #6: Rising Sun Pale Ale

Turned this up at the BC Liquor Store on Cambie. I've crossed Japan off my list for the Beers Around the World Challenge months ago (Ah, for the days when a simple bottle of Kirin Ichiban could still get my heart racing. It was a simpler time, was March of 2011) but this is something I've never heard of before.

The label tells me it's from Baird's brewery and from the name 'Rising Sun' I make the assumption that it's Japanese. I'm slightly concerned that thinking like that might be racist.

The rest of the bottle doesn't give me any clues - there's plenty of writing on the back but it's all in some kind of crazy foreign script that could be a desperate plea for help from a slave labourer in the bottling plant for all I know. Some light googling later and my suspicions are confirmed - Baird's is a brewery in Japan , there's no mention of slave labour being used in their factories and I'm probably not racist for not recognising Japanese script.

There's some cool artwork happening on the label. The red sun brings back childhood memories of beating the shit out of E-Honda on Street Fighter, the whole thing has got a lot of colour and Baird have got their craft-beer bases covered with a customised bottle cap with a picture of some barley on it. I've got high hopes for this one.

I’m a little concerned on the pour - Rising Sun doesn’t look as delicious as I was hoping. There’s some yeasty cloudiness and some specs of sediment floating about.

But lo and behold, it smells great! Piney and grassy with some fruity hop smells in there as well. There’s less of the fruit and more of the pine when it hits the mouth but there’s still some citrus going on there too. There’s a bitterness on the finish which might scare off some drinkers but, frankly, they’d be wrong and I hate them. It tastes awesome.

Since I haven’t learned to read Japanese between starting this article and writing this sentence I’ve no idea what strength this stuff is, but based on taste I’d put it around 5%. The only drawback for rising sun is price; this bottle was 360ml and set me back $7. It’s bloody delicious but I couldn’t justify this as anything other than a one off treat.

Verdict: 8/10