Beer: Sapporo Premium

Brewery: Sapporo Breweries, Ltd. Tokyo, Japan (Brewed in Ontario, Canada)

Overview: Sapporo is Japan's oldest beer, and now has a worldwide brewing and distribution network.

Aroma: Strong malty flavor, very little hop aroma.

Appearance: Crystal clear, pale gold. Has a white head and shows moderate carbonation in the rising bubbles.

Flavor: This lager is a very malty beverage.  Some hop bitterness.

Overall Impression: To be honest, Sapporo is not my favorite beer in a light style, perhaps because its full malt flavor is quite a meal in itself.  That said, though, Sapporo is an excellent sidecar to sushi and other light Japanese fare.  The malty flavor helps cut any heat from your wasabi and and is a great example of the Japanese lager interpretations.

Vitals:
Style Japanese Lager (perhaps German Pils?)
Price $7.99/six-pack
Found In Grocery Store Beer Aisle
Alcohol Content 4.9% by volume
Availability Year-round

Next Week Happy Hour Review: Delirium Tremens

Beer: Widmer Brothers Broken Halo IPA

Used with permission
Widmer Brothers Brewing Co.

Brewery: Widmer Brothers Portland, Oregon

Overview: Broken Halo IPA is Widmer's standard India Pale Ale offering (as opposed to the Imperial Deadlift IPA).

Aroma: Very clean hops aroma, smells heavily of citrus hops.  Very little malt smell, though a little malty sweet smell does cut through.

Appearance: The beer is a clear, golden color.  It has a white head that quickly dissipates.

Flavor: The nice citrus hops impression from the aroma carries over to the flavor, bringing a grapefruit-like flavor to the beer which tends to hide any additional flavor profile.

Overall Impression: This beer comes across as a drinkable IPA, aimed at bringing the hoppiness to a more mass-marketable brew.  I do enjoy it as a whole, but it really lacks much towards being a standout in the IPA world.  Hopheads will try this out and think it lacks any bitterness whatsoever.  A nice attempt, but not a shining example of what I would want to drink as an IPA.  Rather, this would make a good post-lawnmowing beer, or just one for sitting around the house.  Good introductory beer, though, as an IPA to those that don't normally drink lots of craft brews.

Vitals:
Style India Pale Ale
Price $7.99/six-pack
Found In Grocery Store Beer Aisle
Alcohol Content 6.0% by volume
Availability Year-round
Bitterness 45 IBU

Next Week Happy Hour Review: Sapporo Premium

Site Updates

Just a quick site update - I've reformatted the default beer review template, and the wine review template and I've started to edit existing posts to conform.  Might take me a while to find all the information, but hopefully it will make it easy to read and a quick comparison between them.  I've also removed "ratings" because they're mostly just numbers that are made up, and the words speak to the beverage better.  Beers and wines that I particularly recommend will be listed somehow in an applet of sorts.  Finally, I will be soon trying to schedule regular content (once a week for happy hour, perhaps?) and reformat the blog into a better template.  Oh, and I'll be putting together some pages (eventually).  No promises on when any of that will happen.