{"id":6342,"date":"2012-10-28T17:34:40","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T03:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.studionewmedia.com\/blog\/?p=6342"},"modified":"2012-12-19T22:08:13","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T08:08:13","slug":"beer-is-good-battle-of-the-black-cans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/2012\/10\/28\/beer-is-good-battle-of-the-black-cans\/","title":{"rendered":"Beer is Good – Battle of the Black Cans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>What should I find at the supermarket than two new-ish dark offerings from mainstream breweries.\u00c2\u00a0 Decades ago, it was “Dunk” (heck, that’s so old, it exists only in my memory and I can’t find anything about it online… did it even exist?\u00c2\u00a0 It had Arnold the Governator in their advertising and was product-placed on some stewardess drama) which faded from popularity, but now darks are back, albeit still on the tamer end of the flavor scale.\u00c2\u00a0 From Yebisu comes the Creamy Top Stout aimed to compete with the widgeted Guinness, and Asahi Dry Black, a dark lager offering.\u00c2\u00a0 I actually had the Yebisu Creamy Top Stout on draught at a restaurant in Okayama last year, but this is the first time I’ve tried the Asahi Dry Black.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Both beers have a very dark color, but both are translucent.\u00c2\u00a0 The Yebisu is more toward a dark, shoyu\u00c2\u00a0brown whereas the Asahi has a hint of a redder tone.\u00c2\u00a0 The Yebisu pours with a fairly good,\u00c2\u00a0moderately persistend head, but the Asahi has a lighter carbonation level and its\u00c2\u00a0thinner, more\u00c2\u00a0heavily attenuated structure doesn’t support a head as long.\u00c2\u00a0 As expected, the Yebisu being a stout\u00c2\u00a0has a thicker, creamier flavor with a hint of sweetness, and the Asahi being a dry beer has more of a bitter note with the added smokiness of a dunkel.\u00c2\u00a0 The hopping is evident in the slight sweentness of the Yebisu, and in the bittering and aroma of the Asahi.\u00c2\u00a0 The Yebisu actually comes fairly close to the benchmark Guinness, but has a lighter\u00c2\u00a0overall flavor.\u00c2\u00a0 The Asahi on first taste has a hint of the phenolic stanky-sweet sneeze smell flavor that the horrible Kirin Stout has, but whatever causes that goes away on subsequent sips.\u00c2\u00a0 The Asahi really is not unlike what it’s name suggests – a dark-roasted malt version of their standard Super Dry.<\/p>\n

More pictures of the Yebisu Creamy Top Stout.\u00c2\u00a0 Not sure what’s up with the texture on the can top, but maybe it’s to promote carbonation nucleation for creating a heavier head during the pour?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More pictures of the Asahi Dry Black<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Recommended (both)<\/p>\n

Three out of four darkly roasted monkeys<\/p>\n

198-yen (about $2.54 USD) each\u00c2\u00a0(if I remember correctly) at the supermarket.\u00c2\u00a0 Haven’t seen the Yebisu varietals at convenience stores, but I have seen the Asahi Dry Black.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What should I find at the supermarket than two new-ish dark offerings from mainstream breweries.\u00c2\u00a0 Decades ago, it was “Dunk” (heck, that’s so old, it exists only in my memory and I can’t find anything about it online… did it even exist?\u00c2\u00a0 It had Arnold the Governator in their advertising and was product-placed on some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[7,8,13,18],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paJYlx-1Ei","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6342"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6646,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6342\/revisions\/6646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}