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Home Beer Review Swan Lake Porter by Hyouko Yashiki No Mori Brewery

Swan Lake Porter by Hyouko Yashiki No Mori Brewery

by Rob
2 comments

Swan Lake Porter is, wait for it, a multiple award-winning 5.5% porter from Hyouko Yashiki No Mori Brewery in Niigata, most importantly winning two golds at the World Beer Cup in 2000 and in 2006, the main competition as far as I’m concerned. Swan Lake Porter has also undergone various design changes with the label below being the most recent, at the time of writing.

Swan Lake Porter
How many relevant awards have you won?
Swan Lake Pub Edo Beer 3
Swan Lake Porter - nice on draft or from bottles.

Swan Lake Porter Aroma and Taste

I had this before at the Swan Lake Edo Pub in Yaesu and thoroughly enjoyed it – admittedly I’m a big fan of porters and find their rich, chocolate and coffee aromas to be soothing and something I sometimes crave for. Swan Lake Porter lives up to that expectation though both in aroma and in looks, with it’s silky onyx black (see Parks and Recreation) body and off-white head. The aroma was more dark chocolate with a smuttering of cocoa when cold but fruitier when warmed up.

This was an almost-classic porter style recipe done by numbers with the roasted malts producing a fine chocolately body that was a tad on the thin side for a porter for my liking, almost verging on schwarzbeer-esque borders. Not a bad thing but I do like my porters to be robust and more on the thick and heavy side. It’s still nice though with the fruit flavours that developed as Swan Lake Porter became warmer, with hints of figs and raisins. Not much of an aftertaste was present either besides a small amount of smoky wood.

Swan Lake Porter One Line Review

Swan Lake Porter is nice drinkable porter that could do with some more substance than style during the next label redesign, especially as it’s at the pricey end of craft beers in Japan, at almost ¥780.

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Where to Buy Swan Lake Porter

Swan Lake Porter can be bought from the Swan Lake Beer online store found at Rakuten here. It can also be bought at GoodBeer.jp here as part of a six-pack, or individually from, Craftbeers.jp here, and also at Sakaya Okadaya here.

It can also be bought from Le Collier in Tokyo Station and also at Yamaoka Saketen in Kyoto.

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2 comments

g2-bd5e997602fcc7b02d10543c31658afd September 11, 2018 - 1:13 pm

Where to buy? You could also actually go to the brewery and pick some up there, Agano needs your tourism!

Reply
Rob September 12, 2018 - 11:46 am

Thanks for the comment.
You could indeed to go Agano but it’s a fair old trek to get there for the majority of our readers. We’re in the process of getting these reviews updated and we’ll add the brewery to the places to buy when this does get updated.

Reply

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