Whilst I'm all for supporting craft breweries and I do think craft breweries do a great job of better expressing a sense of locality and have the agility to push boundaries better, I think it would be remiss for me to exclude the good work that macro breweries have also done in producing their beers. And so where good work is done, credit is certainly due.

Particularly in a highly competitive field like Japanese beer brewing, I think the macro producers have certainly done a good job of staying fairly experimental and creative and using their resources in good stead to produce ever new releases that whet our appetite. 

Sorachi Ace Hops.

In today's instance, we have the Sorachi 1984 from Sapporo. Sapporo is of course one of the oldest running breweries in Japan, having been founded in 1876, and whose history is just as well very much part of Japan's brewing story as anyone else's.

In 1984, Sapporo had created a new hop called the Sorachi Ace - one of the unique aspects of Japanese brewers is their constant desire to use local ingredients which in the context of beer brewing has meant coming up with their own hop farms! - which Sapporo says is now popular with brewers around the world. The Sorachi Ace hops is named after its origins in Kamifurano Town of the Sorachi District in Hokkaido, and is said to be known for producing an aroma of Japanese cypress and lemongrass. It was in fact the first hop variety registered by Sapporo Beer as they had strived towards improving the quality of their beers and felt that the use of local hops would keep its beers not only fresher but would also better embody a Japanese beer in its truest form.

Kamifurano Town, Sorachi.

Unfortunately the hop never did see the light of day in Japan at the time, that was until it was planted on a wider scale in America! And thus more than 35 years in the making, Sapporo was later able to produce a beer made entirely of Sorachi Ace hops in 2019. And whilst the Sorachi Ace hops is now being increasingly cultivated back in Kamifurano Town, Sorachi, the reality remains that its output remains too small to support the production of Sapporo's Sorachi 1984 beer, and thus Sapporo uses a combination of American and Japanese grown Sorachi Ace hops. With the success of Sorachi Ace, Sapporo has signalled its interest in further developing more varietals in Japan, and for its entire Sorachi beer line to be made with domestic Japanese-grown hops.

And so today we're going to try the highly popular Sorachi 1984 expression which is precisely made with 100% Sorachi Ace hops.

Let's go!

Beer Review: Sapporo Sorachi 1984 | サッポロ ソラチ SORACHI 1984

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep Gold

Aroma: Rather heady, with really thick malty aromas, layered with some wheat, and with this really buttery quality. It’s giving lots of oat biscuits and Meiji crackers, without any sweetness. There’s also a gentle bit of citrusy aromatics of apricots, oranges and grapefruit. There’s also the scent of honey, but again without any sweetness. Really rich and aromatic!

Taste: Much more plush and velvety here. It’s giving more sweetness here, with light drizzles of honey, accompanied by more of those citrusy fruits of apricots, pomelos and some pineapples too. There’s a light, breezy grassiness here as well. It’s medium-bodied, really supple and rounded, with a really creamy texture.

Finish: Those citruses persist into the finish, with bits of pineapples and apricots especially. Some of that grassiness comes through too, with alittle bit of diesel. It has a really lovely malt backbone that shows itself here, giving this really buttery feel to it, and a delicate sweetness of Meiji biscuits. It’s plush and rich into the finish, ending off seamlessly.

My Thoughts

Wow! This was an incredibly tasty beer! Now I have to concede that I don't know about Japanese cypresses or lemongrass but I certainly found this to be a great combination of citrusy, buttery malty and with a great honeyed richness. It's full on aromatic on the nose, yet doesn't come off sweet, instead leaning more heavily into a cereal aspect, with lots of oats and wheat crackers. It wasn't till the palate where more sweetness of the honey came through, along with all those classic IPA-styled citrus fruits, with this slight sense of breezy, airy grassiness, yet delivered on this incredibly supple and rounded body.

The textures on this was just absolutely fantastic! It all carries into the finish, keeping all that glorious maltiness, persistently giving this really generous and buttery delicate sweetness of crushed up cereal grain, working its way into this seamless finish.

This was incredibly tasty and takes it up a notch with just how buttery and rich it was, encasing all those citrus fruits and fresh, grassy hoppiness, giving it so much body.

Kanpai!

@111hotpot