NEW YORK. We all know that Budweiser is brewed with rice to mellow it. But maybe rice can be a constituent of real beer after all. The 183-year-old Kiuchi Brewery in Ibaraki, Japan, makes an ale with a blend of specialty rice strains and sake yeasts, following it's tradition of making fine sake. The NY Times noted that the beer is being served in upscale, jackets-required places like NYC's Per Se. We sampled three beers from the market leader, Hitachino Nest (Kiuchi Brewery): Red Rice Ale, White Ale, and their Weitzen, just to understand the new craze. The Red Rice Ale's origin is interesting. The U.S. importer of the brand convinced the brewery to use the same red rice the brewer used in rare sake. It's a very cloudy, reddish colored ale, with a massive, beautiful, reddish head that lasts forever. (And you know what we're talking about, men.) Lovely, fruit-plus-rice aroma. Very interesting. Nice, full mouthfeel. It's got a crisp, sweet bite to it, with a nice, sweet, fruity finish. Well done. Not too surprising that it's caught on. The owner/chef of NYC's Momofuku says it's his best selling beer. The Weizen is a cloudy, but much lighter beer, that has the most "normal beer" taste of the three. Mild aroma, sweet finish, good mouthfeel. This beer would make Belgians proud: it's very close to their white beers (although the brewery claims it's a German-style beer). The White Ale was the strangest-tasting, and our least favorite, although the brewery claims it's a best-seller. It has the strongest aroma, but it's hard to place what the fruity aroma is. Sour cherries? Orange? Like the others, it's cloudy, but nicely colored. The head vanishes almost immediately. Like the others, it has a good mouthfeel and is crisp tasting. But the strangeness of the aroma didn't thrill us. All of these are well worth trying, and we're searching for their other types, such their Pale Ale, Stout, and Classic Ale.