Iwate Kura Bakushu Oyster Stout

For this blog I decided to take a little beer excursion across the world's largest ocean. I have hopped the pond to bring you an entry from the land of Godzilla, and awkward tv game shows. This blog is about a beer brewed in Iwate Japan. I do not know much about this area, only that it lies in Northern Japan. Anyone with more knowledge, especially brewery related, on this area feel free to yell a couple more facts about me. Anyway I had been wanting to do one on some of the emerging craft beers coming from our neighbors across the Pacific, and I did not want it to be Sapporro either sorry if your fan, but quite frankly it's the Carona of Japan. This beer from Iwate Kura Bakushu is much more flavorful by far, and the best oyster stout I've had as well. It has a pleasent stout aroma to it, with a slight hint of smokiness to it. The taste is a nice dry stout, that has a small sweet chocolate taste to it. If you savor it in your mouth for a little while it is easy to start picking up a hint of a smoked flavor, but just slightly different. I do not have a ton of info on this beer but I am guessing it was made with smoked oysters, which lent it self perfectly to the beer as a whole. There are many flavors in this particular stout, but they are all slight hints, which makes the a very subtle, yet flavorful type of brew. It is also incredibly drinkable, and what I believe makes this such a great beer is that no one taste is overpowering. It is another prime example of how using the the proper ingredients in the right proportion can create an incredibly balanced beer. The beer appears to be a great stout as it is, but the slight sweetness, and oyster taste works perfectly in balance with how the beer is created. An example to give perspective is another oyster stout is one I drank made in Ireland, and blagh! It was horrible, it tasted like they plucked an oyster right out of the ocean and included in the brewing process. The beer was so briny it tasted like a mixture half beer half brine. For all you nasty beer salters, that may be the perfect beer for you pre-salted, but for all normal beer drinkers just nasty. Now I don't know how easy it is to find this particular one, but I found mine out of 99 bottles in Des Moines, and I don't really recall seeing it anywhere else. There may however be alot of these style beers popping up more frequently as I know many NW breweries are starting to brew these in an increased frequency. It's definitely different, and as this beer proves, can be quite flavorful as well. I highly recommend it, and say bravo to Japan this beer is about 20 times more exciting than a godzilla movie.