Good ol Friday. Actually, every day is exactly the same, but good ol Friday for the sake of celebration.  And for that very reason, I picked up the above beverage at a costly 315 yen for the 500ml can, a good 60 yen more expensive than an Asahi Dry. I'm slowly working through all of the Japanese Beers.  There's only about 15 regulars, (local beer?!?, probably Sake) so it shouldn't take long.  A nearby specialty liquor store had of course a large variety of sake, but instead of beer, there were at least 200 varieties of whiskey.  There wasn't really any other kind of liquor, just a ton of whiskey.  Cheap and affordable compared to beer.  Anyway. As for "the hop", it seems less hoppy and more maltly.  It does contain a 5.5% alcohol content, higher than the regular 5, but I've tasted much hoppier beer in my lifetime. (There's an 11% mega-hopper they occasionally sell in Athens.)

The taste isn't bad.  It's like all Japanese beers in that it taste a little but like dust.