For the sake of completion

Among the supermarket beers I encountered in São Paulo were three from the Prius contract brand. The selling point here, which may or may not be unique, is their use of sake yeast for fermentation, hence the pseudo-Japanese branding, and the name, Ginjo, which is the highest grade of sake.

I started with Sour Ginjo, a sour ale of 3.9% ABV and including lime and yuzu: seemingly perfect for a warm and humid December afternoon. It's a pale yellow and smells like a citrus soft drink: sharply acidic but with big heaping helpings of sugar as well. The flavour continues this lemonade vibe. It's pleasant, but quite un-beer-like. For one thing, the sour side of the picture is missing. It's light and zesty, in the way sour beer tends to be, but it's not actually sour. The overly sweet citric syrup is inelegant, and gives it a cheapness I wasn't expecting from the quite classy branding. More than an exotic take on fruited sour beer, this is a kind of super-strength radler. Adjust your expectations accordingly in the event you're about to open one.

I'm glad I opened the second one, Brut Ginjo, by the kitchen sink. because it gushed like fury. This one is amber coloured and rather stronger at 6.5% ABV. As well as sake yeast, they've used Japanese hops, although they don't say which ones. We'll assume Sorachi Ace, shall we? It smells pithy, which bears that out, and the flavour has a lot of orange going on as well. That's set on a dry cracker crispness, which fulfils the brut part of the promise, but everything pretty much ends there, with only a faint smear of marmalade as the aftertaste. Although it is quite heavy, it doesn't really use the alcohol heft to deliver any extra taste. I found myself getting bored of it quite quickly. It's a bit flabby and messy overall, where I expected something sharper and cleaner. I don't really get what this is trying to be, nor whether it has succeeded.

Weiss Ginjo, finally, behaved itself impeccably on opening. It's a little light for a weissbier, at only 4.5% ABV. There's not much haze either, the lovely sunset golden colour being almost completely see-through. The aroma brings us back on track, with some attractive clove notes and a general fruitiness. That becomes more specific in the flavour, dominated by a sweet pear note, strong enough to veer into the chemical end of things, rather than actual pears. It's not unpleasant, but it is very intense. A modest sprinkle of clove or nutmeg spicing finishes it off. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that you can't make an authentic-tasting weissbier using sake yeast. Yeast is the principal reason the Bavarian ones taste how they do. This isn't bad, however, and offers a not-dissimilar experience of soft wheat and refreshing fizz: a kind of parallel-universe weissbier.

The Pruis range also has a Kölsch and, obviously, an IPA, though Carrefour Brazil deigns not to stock them. Completion will have to wait.