Ishii Japanese Green Tea IPA

I have had this beer sitting in my refrigerator for a long time (about two months now), and I am just now finally getting around to giving it a try. When I saw these sitting on the shelf at Total Wine, I ignored the high price tag and - knowing that this was one of those drinks that I just had to try, regardless of cost - quickly grabbed one off of the shelf. Given my initial excitement about the beer, I assumed that I would be drinking this one right away, but I suppose that it assumed more and more of a sort of "wait for a special occasion" status the longer that it sat in my refrigerator. However, I got tired of waiting for such a special occasion, and finally decided to just drink it last week.

The first thing that struck me as interesting about Ichii's green tea IPA was the amount of sediment that remained suspended in the glass after pouring. I have no aversion to a bit of sediment in my beer, but rarely does it remain dispersed throughout the liquid as it did in this case. The solid material did eventually settle out to the bottom of the glass, but it took quite some time to do so. This is not necessarily good or bad; I just thought that it was worth mentioning.

The taste of Ichii's green tea IPA is not unlike that of other IPAs that I have had recently. The green tea taste was certainly there, but it was fairly faint, and really didn't add a huge amount of flavor to the overall taste. It became more prominent as I drank more of the beer, as I knew what I was looking for by that point, but it was still pretty light and was largely masked by the flavors of the beer itself. Ultimately, it seems to me like what could have been a very unique and interesting flavor combination ended up being more of an underwhelming gimmick. The beer itself, though, was pretty tasty, and fell on the dry and bitter side that many IPAs usually tend towards.

Overall, I didn't think that Ichii's Japanese green tea IPA was as interesting as I had hoped that it would be. As an IPA, the beer was pretty good, although a little bit standard. However, the somewhat disappointing influence from the green tea makes me wonder if this is one to be recommended, or if it is best just to stick with other, regular IPAs that are a bit more reasonable in price.

Verdict: Worth a try


Purchased: Total Wine and More [Columbia, SC]
Size: 12 fl. oz. [355 mL]
Price: $3.99 [Per bottle]