Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari is, for those who don’t know, a beer made from the best Japanese rice available, the Koshihikari strain. Recently, there has been an interest in using rice to make beer among craft beer manufacturers, such as Echigo Beer and Hitachino Nest Red Rice, and this Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari is no exception. What’s even harder is trying to find any information about it anywhere. It exists but nowhere seems to list it besides the Gotemba Kogen website.
It’s rice, Jim, but not as we know it. It’s not sake but beer made from rice.
Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari Aroma and Taste
Opening up Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari is a surreal experience. Part of me expected to smell something similar to the aroma given off by a rice cooker, yet nothing seemed to happen. Styled as a lager, there wasn’t much life to it really and it just produced a golden bodied beer that had a slight frothy head that lasted less than the time it took to pour the beer. Aroma wise, you’d need to get your nose wet to get anything from this beer. There was a faint whiff of rice and some yeast in there but not much else going.
Drinking Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari was just like drinking your regular bog-standard-run-of-the-mill lager from the convini. Crisp and refreshing but devoid of any flavour to write about, well, it did remind me a bit of rice crackers but those plain ones that babies eat to get them used to the toughness. Before I knew it, the beer was gone and I was left wondering what had happened.
Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari One-line Review
Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari isn’t anything to write home about and a dissapointment considering the rest of the line up.
Where to Buy Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari
Gotemba Kogen Koshihikari can be bought at the Gotemba Kogen Beer online store here else you can buy it at the brewery. Some bars do stock it outside of the Gotemba Kogen resort but don’t bother hunting it down unless you are trying to complete your beer collection.
