I haven't drunk a lot of Japanese beer but I must say none of them have been particularly memorable.

However, I have an expectation that some good beer is made in Japan – it just hasn't reached me yet.

Why does Japanese beer appeal to me more than other Asian beers? Japan has a very young brewing history. The first brewery started in the 1870s and had a strong German influence. Today there are four major brewers: Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo and Suntory.

Asahi Super Dry is Asahi's signature beer and one of the biggest sellers in Japan. Asahi created the dry style of lager in 1987 and it was immediately a hit with the Japanese, and took the brewery from third largest to second largest.

The dry style spread around the world and I remember when it hit New Zealand in the early '90s. I tasted some pretty bad dry beers, especially the American versions. The beers were fermented longer so had less of that malt sweetness that dominated beer at that time.

Bud is a fairly light-tasting beer so removing the sweetness of the malt was only ever going to produce a watery Bud Dry.

In New Zealand, DB Export Dry is the only version still made today. There has been a surge of low-carbohydrate beers that have recently come on the market and they are really the same type of beer – mainstream lagers that have been fermented longer, so there are less sugars in the beer and therefore drier.

Asahi Super Dry, the beer I am drinking today, is brewed under licence in quite a few countries. My bottle came here from a brewery in Thailand. And, secret obsession with Japanese beer or not, I wasn't expecting too much, although I had the bottle nice and cold before I poured it into a glass.

The label is classy with black writing on a silver background and some Japanese characters to give a hint of oriental mystique. On opening the bottle a fruity malt aroma was immediately detected. The beer is deep golden with a yellow tinge at the edges.

The head quickly settled to a thin wisp on top. The nose is subtle and inviting with that malt fruitiness. In the mouth, a rounded malt character develops to a rich body in the middle.

Some hop fruit comes through in the middle and goes to the finish with the malt fading. There is only a touch of hop bitterness that finally leads to the expected dryness that lingers in the aftertaste.

I was pleasantly surprised with this beer. There is some good delicate malt and hop fruit that is clean and well balanced. It is not as dry as I was expecting but well worth a try.

Asahi Super Dry beer
Style: dry lager
Made by: Asahi Breweries, Thailand.
Alcohol content: 5% abv.
Price: around $20 a six pack.
Availability: at good liquor outlets, Woolworths.
Description: well balanced and clean. Some subtle hop fruit throughout.

- The Press