Uehara Shuzou Co. Ltd. - Koshihikari Echigo Beer

Yesterday, I went out for sushi with my girlfriend and one of my best friends, Dylan. While we were there, I noticed that the restaurant had just gotten a new beer- Koshihikari Echigo. It sounded interesting enough so I decided to try it.

The beer comes in a very traditionally Japanese looking bottle. Most of the writing is in Japanese on the bottle and the label has a watercolor on it of some people picking rice in a field. It almost looks more like a sake bottle than a beer bottle. Something told me right away I was going to like this beer.

The beer pours a very pale and clear yellowish color with almost no head. The smell of the beer is pretty similar to that of a Kirin or a similar Japanese beer with a lot of maltiness coming through. As the beer warmed a bit, I could pick out a little steamed rice in the smell.

The taste of the beer was also pretty similar to that of a Kirin and was malty with a slight bitterness. However, whereas the finish of a Kirin or Asahi is all bitterness, the finish of the Koshihikari fades into an almost sweet smooth finish. Probably my favorite part of the beer. It's absolutely perfect with sushi. Definitely worth a try, just make sure you find out how much it is before the check comes. Oops.

Final Grade: B+

Hooray Running! Hooray Beer!

In a few months, I'm going to be running the Hood to Coast race for the second time. While I couldn't be more excited about the race itself, I find myself now with three months until the race begins and with only a handful of runs under my belt. Not good. Something has to change before the race begins and I'm thinking that maybe I can use writing as a motivation for my running. From now on, every time I run, it's going on here. My posts may not be super exciting or super long, but hopefully they will become a motivation for me and, if I look on here and notice a lack of posts about running, I'll know to get out and run again. That's my hope. We'll see how it goes.

So where does the "Hooray Beer!" part come in? For a while, I've been looking for a theme of some sort for my blog. While "random" is sort of a theme, I've kind of been wanting to take on something a little more specific. I didn't want to just turn this blog into a running journal (boring), and I didn't want to just turn this into a beer blog (done before). So, I figured why not do both? Therefore, the name of the blog is hereby changed to "Hooray Running! Hooray Beer!" One of these is a real "hooray" (for now). Hopefully by the time Hood to Coast comes around, both of these will be real"hoorays".

You may think that running and beer don't (or shouldn't) have anything in common, but they do for me. The point of this blog is that (hopefully) by the time the race comes around, I'll know a lot more about both running and beer. I've loved beer for a long time but I've never known much about what I was drinking. Don't get me wrong, I can tell a lager apart from a lambic, but I want to really learn about beer and the process of brewing. As I learn more about beer, I'll post my new knowledge on here, along with reviews of all of the beers I try along the way. And as far as posting random things like I've been doing up to this point, I may still throw in a few every once in a while.

So there you have it. Running and beer: A bad combination for most, but not for me. Maybe I need to work on that slogan.