Friday, March 29, 2024
Home Beer ReviewDraft Review Tokorozawa Dark Horse by Tokorozawa Brewery

Tokorozawa Dark Horse by Tokorozawa Brewery

by Rob
0 comment

Tokorozawa Dark Horse is a 5.5% black IPA from Tokorozawa Brewery, based in Saitama, Japan. It’s part of their all year round of draft beers and is yet to see the light of day in terms of bottling. Besides that, not much else is known Tokorozawa Dark Horse as neither their homepage or other Japanese site lists the ingredients used; however, Tokorozawa Dark Horse does have an IBU of 60.

Tokorozawa Dark Horse

A dark horse indeed.

Tokorozawa Dark Horse Aroma and Taste

This isn’t the first time I’ve had Tokorozawa Dark Horse, having tried it at Soul Bird in Daimon, so I wanted to try it again for “review” purposes. Tokorozawa Dark Horse poured out a thick black colour with a large frothy off-white head on top that collapsed quickly and left slightly oily splodges on top of the beer. There was a lot of contrasting aromas going on in the beer too – hints of cocoa yet a citrus mango nose going on that came through in the end. When Tokorozawa Dark Horse had warmed up, some coffee notes also peeked through – is this a hopped-up porter or a coffee IPA?! Most peculiar on the nose really.

The body had more of the same with hints of coffee and chocolate coming up against an underlying taste of lemony passion fruits. If Tokorozawa Dark Horse was supposed to be bitter with an IBU of 60 then it was pretty hard to detect due to the black malts dominating over it. It all seemed to be leaning towards more of the dark malts in Tokorozawa Dark Horse rather than bringing out more of the hoppiness that comes with a black IPA. It ended up with the coffee flavour lingering through the aftertaste.

Tokorozawa Dark Horse The Bottom Line

Tokorozawa Dark Horse is more of a fruity porter than a black IPA – a shame really but still drinkable if you think of it like that.

banner

You may also like

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.