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The only other Chinese beer I remember having is the Lucky Buddha that was very skunked. It was very bad, and I was planning on avoiding any other Chinese beers. I feel like that is vaguely racist, and I don't want to do something like that, but I can only assume the shipping from China just isn't good enough to get a beer here that is still viable for drinking. In order to disprove this, I picked this up to see if maybe a premium lager is something that the Chinese can do well.
For starters, it looks pretty good. They appear to have copied many American macro brews with the deep gold beer and a stark white head that fizzles down to almost nothing on top of the beer. To call the aroma faint would be to overstate just how little aroma there really is. I got my nose way deep down inside the glass, and I still can't tell you what this smells like. I guess, at least it's not skunked.
First sip is perfectly tolerable. It doesn't have very much flavor, and that is the kind of thing that often benefits a large brewery. The sip doesn't inform me that it isn't skunked. It is slightly sweet with corn, and there isn't much else to the taste. I like beers that let you know what they are, but there is a place for beers that are just intended to sit back and enjoy over the course of an evening. I think this one is intending to be the latter.
Tip-in is grains, sweet corn, and there is just a hint of skunk. The middle goes down easy with sweetness from the malt, giving a nice bed for almost non-existent floral hops. The finish gives a little more of the skunk before adding a little dry and a little bitter to the trail off.
Bottom Line: Better than some domestic beers, but still not great.
1.5/5
