Sapporo Premium Lager: Easy Drinking Beer made in Japan

Some beer products are synonymous with different countries or regions. Foster’s Lager is known for its Australian Roots. Molson is well- connected with Canada and practically no one can pop open a Corona and not think of Mexico. Japan also has a beer most people associate quickly with the country and that beer is Sapporo, a beer available in different styles/versions. Let’s take a look at the most popular among them, Sapporo Premium Beer.

Beer Bio

Style: Japanese Rice Lager

Calories: 138 per 12 oz. serving

Carbs: 10.2 grams per 12 oz. serving

Alcohol Content: 4.9 percent by volume

Bitterness Rating: 24 IBU

Sapporo Premium Beer is a golden, straw- colored beer that pours to a soft white head of foam that dissipates rapidly, leaving no head or no lacing. The body of the beer is completely clear and the nose on this beer is one of rice, light grains, a little bit of grass, and even a touch of honey.

Sapporo Premium Beer has a taste that combines flavors of light, sweet malts with some tart and only slightly bitter notes in the finish. Grains and grass seem to dominate and I could even detect a touch of apple hiding behind the light, sweet malts.

Sapporo Premium Beer is the most widely recognized and consumed among the different Sapporo varieties. Most consumers recognize the large, 22 oz. silver can used to package Sapporo Premium Lager, but the brand is also packaged in bottles. I have sampled the beer from both the metal and the glass and can find little if any discernable taste difference. I did notice a little better head retention from the bottled version but that’s about it. Whether you go with the can or bottle is a matter of preference, but I would likely go for the can, just because I like to take me beer with me to my pool and other places where glass isn’t welcome.

Sapporo Premium beer is a lager made with rice as one of its ingredients, similar to the bulk of the Anheuser- Busch product line. However, in spite of the rice and its “lightening” effects, Sapporo Premium Lager does have a touch more color than the typical A-B brew. It also has a crispness that helps add to its refreshing qualities.

Sapporo Premium Lager seems tailor- made to consume with Japanese and Asian foods in general and I can vouch that it does match up nicely with salty foods. I know that some people like a glass of Sapporo with sushi or other fish and I find it serves well as an offset to the salty character of many Asian dishes, particularly anything made with soy sauce. Its flavor acts as a good counter- balance to the taste of salt and its generally benign flavor profile makes it a generally acceptable beer.

I can’t say I’m too excited about Sapporo Premium Lager, but I can’t say it’s a bad beer, either. It does match up nicely with Eastern foods and the flavor is quite non- offensive, to the point that most anyone will at least find it acceptable. Drink Sapporo Premium Lager in the way that it was intended and you’ll find that this is an agreeable macro- lager, a touch better than the rice- laden beers produced over at Anheuser- Busch InBev.

 

Rating: 5.5 cheers out of 10