My old friend Akihito and I had a language barrier. He knew three words of English, and I knew one word of Japanese.

His words were, “sex,” “rock-n-roll,” and “beer.” (To him “rock-n-roll” was one word.)

My word was “sake.” As in, that rice wine you serve hot.

So when I asked him about sake, he thought I was saying “Asahi,” something of which at that point I’d never heard of. It was years later at a sushi restaurant that I finally figured out our misunderstanding. I had my first Asahi beer.

I wasn’t that impressed then, and I’m not that impressed now.

My impression is that it has all the right elements to make a really good beer, but just not enough of each of them. They were afraid to add too much, or they figured economically they could make more money if they added maybe 7% less of this, 4% less of that. What they ended up with was the antithesis of synergy. The whole is even less than the sum of its parts.

It’s a beer that really could almost be good. Through Asahi Black’s watery nature are fine elements. You can taste them. They’re there. But if beer were music, this would be a symphony with too few instruments playing at too low a volume for anyone to really enjoy it.

Asahi, you need to listen to more Grateful Dead: “It takes dynamite to get me up. Too much of everything is just enough.”

Beer is about gusto, not subtlety.

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