Wagamama Asahi 330ml

Wagamama serves Asahi Super Dry at £5.20, the house lager and the bottle the menu was practically built around: Japan's dry lager, brewed to finish clean and vanish, resetting the palate between spoonfuls the way the food's own pickles do. Published price, vegan marked.

Karakuchi, the dry style Asahi defined, is engineered subtraction: minimal sweetness, quick crisp finish, nothing lingering to argue with the next bite. Beside katsu, ramen and glazed bowls that restraint is the entire point, and it is why Japanese restaurants worldwide default to it.

It is the bottle for the diner who wants beer as punctuation rather than conversation, the cold reliable third of a classic wagamama order, and the reference against which the list's character bottles define themselves. Asahi zero replicates the job without the alcohol at nearly the same price.