Inawashiro Brown Weizen follows up from the Inawashiro Weizen here by being a dunkelweizen, or a dark weizen, style beer. It’s a seasonal beer though only released in winter and generally found in bottle form. Inawashiro Brown Weizen has an abv of 5% and a very short shelf life. The bottle I got was received at the beginning of March 2015 and was due to “go bad” in less than a month. Drinking to the maximum…
Sorry for the tilted camera angle. Maybe something to do with too many beers?
Inawashiro Brown Weizen Aroma and Taste
This was another bottle that I was given by Rob and I wasn’t surprised when he warned me to drink it quickly as it was going off soon. Segue into soapbox corner…
Inawashiro Brown Weizen SoapBox Corner
One of the biggest factors going against craft beer manufacturers is shelf life of beers and the minimum amount of time needed for supermarkets. In the past, some breweries have mentioned about the problems they have with bottling and shelf life. Let’s take Inawashiro Brown Weizen as an example. It’s pretty hard to find in the shops, heck, Rob only came across it as it popped up on World Beer Market’s listing.
Inawashiro Brown Weizen seems to have a shelf life of less than 90 days, the magic number that shops will pretty much refuse to stock a beer. With shops facing differing demands for craft beers, the craft beers they are going to stock are the ones with the longer shelf life and are also popular. So here we have a problem, breweries have to improve bottling techniques to increase the shelf life of their beer if they want to get the in the supermarkets, yet if there is not a demand for that beer, why bother improving the shelf life?
…and it’s over. Inawashiro Brown Weizen had barely a week left until it turned bad and tried to do naughty things. It was chilled to about 8ºc then drunk.
Inawashiro Brown Weizen poured out a thick gloopy, hazy brown colour that was far lighter than I have seen in the past, for example Minamishinshu Dunkelweizen, with a massive amount of head that was off-white and lingered for a long time. The aroma was much yeastier than I like along with a buttery smell for some weird reason, perhaps it had already began to turn to the bad side.
The body of the beer was nice enough I guess. A bit of sweetness mixed in with the bananas and cloves you’ve come to expect, along with a grainy nutty taste though I couldn’t shake the buttery tones coming though. I was hoping for more of a biscuit taste, not a bourbon cream mind, perhaps a digestive or rich tea-esque level of biscuit taste. Inawashiro Brown Weizen finished off with a tinge of sadness as I began to realise.
Inawashiro Brown Weizen One Line Review
Inawashiro Brown Weizen looks like someone has just dropped some brown food colouring into a weizen and that’s it.
Where to Buy Inawashiro Brown Weizen
As Inawashiro Brown Weizen is a seasonal beer, it’s best to keep an eye out on the Inawashiro Ji-Beer online store here.
