Miami Rice - (Gold Medal Winning) Japanese Rice Lager - Tasting Results/Review

 

Our Miami Rice Japanese Rice Lager took 1st place in the Flatrock Homebrew Comp in the International Pale Lager category. Read on to find out more!

Introduction

We felt this beer was pretty good when we made it, and as mentioned above, it took out 1st place in the 2026 Flatrock Homebrew Comp in the International Pale Lager category. A great achievement that we're very proud of, and based on this and the success of our first rice lager (Mr Rice Guy) we're putting a fork in the rice lagers for now and considering them "done".

Our review below won't be too in-depth as we'll leave the brew comp scoresheets to tell the story.

Appearance

Light in colour, crystal clear, this beer looks exactly how it should. Even with some carapils/carafoam in the grist, we still didn't have great head retention, but aside from this it definitely looks the part!

Aroma

Slight cracker aroma from the malt, a hint of yeast character from the 34/70 and very low hop aroma, it's exactly what you'd expect from a pale lager like this.

Flavour

One thing we remember from Mr Rice Guy that was also present in this beer was a slight sweetness up front that is only subtle but still noticeable. Not an off-flavour per say, and we'd describe it as almost vanilla-like, but is perhaps a little out of place. It's only really noticeable on the first couple of sips and then disappears, and we can only conclude that this is something to do with the rice. 

Competition Scoresheet

Here's the actual scoresheet from the brewing competition;

We received scores of 40/50 and 36/50 for a combined/average score of 38/50 - enough to take out first place.

Conclusion

We're very happy with how this beer turned out, so we're going to try some other adjuncts like maize/corn for future pale lagers instead of rice.

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