KIRIN: The Premium Muroka

While living in Japan, I had the pleasure of sampling many of Japan's fine brews. Being from Wisconsin, and raised with such an amazing variety of super great beers, I was initially disappointed by Japan's beer selection. However, upon further exploration, Japan has a quite good beer culture, if you do not mind doing a little work. Right before leaving Japan, I went on a weekend getaway with some friends. We bought an interesting variety of beers each night to try. I had sort of found a beer that I liked, but with my return home, quickly forgot about it. It was nothing special, but was just a good, solid beer.

This beer was called The Premium Muroka by Kirin.

Recently a couple of my friends visited from Japan. For omiyage, they brought me two bottles of this very beer! What luck!

The Premium Muroka has a nice amber color. Since it is unfiltered, it's a bit cloudy. It has a nice burst of flavor at the beginning and melts away to something very simple and refreshing at the end. For a Japanese beer, it has a rich flavor, but is a little plain. It is easily drinkable and has a unique, pungent smell. I consider this to be a light (bodied), medium beer.

What can we learn from the bottle?

- It has "deep and rich taste from non-filtered process"

- It is 5.5% ABV

Hmmm... that's it! I tried to find out more about it on the Internet, but since it is mostly in Japanese, I did not have much luck.

As I mentioned before, this beer had decent character compared to many (somewhat boring) Japanese beers. If you make it to the land of the rising sun and need a good beer, The Premium Muroka may be it!