Drinks of summer ahoy!

Hello readers. Thanks for checking in! Again, sorry for the lack of updates. I have been very busy the last few months and I have had some good drinks I would like to share. So let's get to it.

Trying an "Africa pale ale".

First off I would like to mention the Akita Craft Beer Festival. It was a fun way to sample some of Japan's micro breweries. Allegedly there were around 70 different companies represented. Several I had heard of before, including Akita's own Tazawako and Aquila breweries.

I sampled about eight or so different beers. I enjoyed the setup, however I thought it was a bit expensive. Something like four 200ml drinks for 1000 yen. I also purchased a small drinking glass to remember the occasion.

As a whole, the beer festival was fun. Though not as nice as the Michigan Beer Festival in Ypsilanti. In my opinion the Akita one has some growing to do.

I would guess there was around 200 people on Sunday, when I went. I understand that the first day had more beer, which was rotated every few hours, and a lot more people. As a whole though the day was perfect for drinking, and my friends and I had a good time.

Displayed left is a shot of some drinks I have recently tried. I might not have a super accurate description of all of them though, I need to start taking notes.  We will start on the left and go right.  The furthest most can is Yona Yona ale.  It is from a microbrewery in Japan. I don't remember where exactly, but I do remember having one of their beers on tap at the festival. Not bad. The second is Brekle's brown ale from Anchor Brewery in San Francisco. The bottle had a brief account of the brewery's history. Over all it was not my favorite brown ale. It was not as flavorful as I would have liked.
The third is a "seasonal" from Asahi, it tastes a little better then normal Asahi and has 6% alcohol. for the price, I suppose it's not too bad, something like 180 yen. The third is Chimay a very strong triple ale something like 8% or more. It had a full rich flavor too. The last of note is the dark Yebisu. Pretty much a dark stout by one of the better large beer companies in Japan.

On a separate note I have located one of my favorite Japanese beers in a local store, the Aooni beer which I had thought to be seasonal. Apparently not. At any rate, that's all for now. Thanks for reading!
Cheers!

Another huge update. Great stuff this time!

Hello again dear readers. And thank you for dealing with my irregular posts. I have some great beers for you this time. I'm really happy to share them with you. First off though, some of the beers I did not enjoy. I will share them, as I have all the previous beers.

I Don't want to be bias against the larger beer companies. They too make good beer sometimes. First off, we have a "new" drink from Asahi. The Direct Shot. Basically it is a standard light Asahi taste with a larger mouth opening... The main draw for me is that it was 105 yen a can. Next is Sapporo Black label. It was decent not too pricey, and a mass produced darker beer. Something akin to Guinness with less flavor. The last of the trio here is Sapporo Ice label.  Not awful, drinkable, but hardly any flavor, it was a generic "ice" beer. I would compare it to Icehouse in the states. Not great. Ok, enough with the bad in with the good.

First off I would like to draw attention to Bass pale ale from England and Lowenbrau from Germany. Both of which were good. Better then the mass produced Japanese beers anyway. Though both are mass produced European drinks. At any rate I just wanted to mention their appearance in a local beer shop. I really enjoyed Bass pale ale. I'm expecting to have more of these in the future. Good full flavor, nice color. A win in my book.

The Brown Ale from Dimond Knot

Now for the winners. I have quite a few. To be honest it would be VERY difficult to pick just one. While I was in Tokyo last week I met a man named Tim  at a bar called Devil Craft An amazing bar in Tokyo which sported a variety of American micro brews from Washington. Diamond Knot has some great stuff, I sampled their Brown Ale and the IPA. Both of which were amazing. IPAs are some of my favorites. I really enjoyed theirs. Not too overly hoppy. Nice backbone (As described by Tim). As for the Brown. Great smooth taste. Really flavorful dark brown color. Another great beer. The only thing that put me off were the prices. 1100 yen for a pint. A little much, but 1800 yen for great pizza more then justified my spending 2200 yen on good beer. Overall a great night!

Good beer from my Tokyo trip

Tim suggested a microbrew from Japan called Baird Beer. It seems like an awesome brewery, I found a few of their drinks in a small drink shop near Tokyo Station, reasonably priced too I might add around 450 yen. I grabbed the Teikoku IPA and Angry Boy Brown Ale. The IPA was amazing. Nice full hop taste, with great color and some bite. The Brown Ale I did not like quite as much, it was still pretty good, with a bit more bite then I expected, but nice full flavor still. I plan on trying more of their stuff in the future. I was really impressed with the quality. I would love to try Baird Beer on tap.

A coaster from Aqula in Akita

Next I will bring up a local brewery for me. The Aqulia Brewery has several really good beverages all brewed locally in Akita. The bar sports a Nomihodai  (all you can drink in X hours) which is 2100 yen. A great deal if you plan on drinking 4 or more beers. They come in a huge glass. And the owner of the place. A very eccentric man, from what I can tell, but full of personality, actually knows how to pour a proper beer! Apparently it is the standard to have 3 inches of nasty head on every beer poured in Japan. I still have not figured out why.

At any rate, thanks for reading everyone. Sorry again for the long delay between updates. Cheers!

The Drinks of "Golden Week"

Hello again dear readers. I have had a very busy last few weeks. Leaving me with some good stuff to write about.  First off two weeks ago was "Golden Week", for those who don't know, Golden Week is a week in Japan where many holidays happen to fall. Meaning a lot of the populace takes the time to vacation with their families and relax. Or in the case of Akita. Drink. So as you all can imagine I've done my fair share over the last few weeks. First off I will mention some drinks I did not get the chance to photograph, though I have reviewed them before.

My girlfriend and I were in a park over Golden Week and met up with some local Akita folk. They kindly invited us over to their drinking area and gave us as much as we could drink. Very kind people. I had a can of Kirin, Asahi Dry Black, and a few shots of sake and some shochu.  Shochu is a drink I had not had before, it is made from sweet potatoes. Very different then sake and much stronger.  I purchased a bottle of it recently and hope to review it in the near future.

The next day we returned to the park and met up with some of my co-workers. With them I had a few bottles of Heartland ale (reviewed earlier, and presumably brewed by Kirin). As well as the Namahage bock, which remains one of my favorite Japanese beers to date.

Later on in the week I went on a mini-vacation with my girlfriend to lake Tazawako. There is at least one brewery located near the lake.

One beer I had with dinner our first night at the hotel was Tazawako Breweries Dark Lager. It was as the name implies. A dark lager, not too bad, fairly smooth, though I might add not great with fish. It might have been better with a hamburger rather then sushi. Overall a good drink though, but as all other drinks are, it was about 500 yen. Still pricey.

The next day during our travels I acquired two more beers. The first I was gifted, from a nice American who was an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher), from another prefecture. He said he would give it to me and all I had to do was share the knowledge of the beer.

It says Rauel I'm not sure what else it says, the only other thing I could tell was it has a 7.5% alcohol content. The highest I've seen in Japan yet. The other I bought solely on the picture on the label, it features the red Namahage. Besides the red demon. I couldn't  read anything else on it but "beer". So over the last few days I tried both. As it is, I really enjoyed the Rauel beer. It was a very hoppy IPA. I enjoy IPAs a lot and I was glad to find one in Japan, even if it did just randomly find its way to me. Thanks to the Californian dude who shared with me. *Cheers*  As for the other beer, It had 5% alcohol content like most other beer I've seen here. It was an amber ale with a slightly wheaty taste. Not so bad, but not worth 550 yen.  I would easily pay 550 yen for the Rauel beer though. I guess it's just whatever your preference is.

While we were out at the lake we went to a restaurant which brewed their own beer. The establishment was called Orae, it seemed a little too fancy for my liking. Everything was very overpriced, including the beer. It was good. But not amazing, and it smelled really bad. It was a slightly wheaty taste. Sadly I'm not too fond of wheat beer.

One of my largest pet peeves in Japan, as far as beer goes is how it is presented. The picture at right shows my beer. I had not taken any drinks from it, yet there is nearly 2.5 inches of head on the top. In my experience I like to see less than an inch. Apparently the people here think it is good looking to get a bunch of foam on top of your beer. This is definitely the case at most restaurants, you pay 500 yen for a drink and 1/3rd of it is head. Not good looking in my book. End rant here.  Overall the trip out to the lake and golden week was great. I purchased some shochu before we left and I hope to write about it soon.

On a final note, my girlfriend and I attended a small sake festival near where we live. I got tickets for 5 drinks and a complimentary sake cup for 1,800 yen ~20 dollars. Not so bad when comparing the prices to everything else around here.  So I tried several locally brewed sakes all of which were very good. Though I learned I don't like dry sake. Good to know. Anyway, thanks for reading all *Cheers!*

A recent expansion of beer knowledge

Again it has been some time dear readers since my last update. I have been busy with my new job, which is going quite well. I have had plenty of time to drink a few new beers. However I have been too lazy to write about them. Well now I will remedy that!

Heartland (Left) and
Brooklyn Lager (Right)

The first two I had some time ago, so I would like to sample them again, but as it is I will talk about what I remember of them. 

The Heartland Beer (green bottle) features a lush tree and a small saying imprinted on the bottle. From what I remember the beer was a simple lager. Nothing amazing, but a good go-to beer. Very smooth and drinkable.

The Second in the picture is Brooklyn Lager "Pre-Prohibition" style. It had a slightly red taste to it, mildly malty. quite good, but fairly expensive from what I recall. It was brewed by the Brooklyn Brewery in Utica N.Y.  Here is a link to their website. I would be curious to try some more beverages from them. This one was quite good.

My next three are slightly more recent. Pictured on the left is Strong Suffolk Vintage Ale from England. It was a very dark ale with slight hints of a caramel or toffee taste. Not bad at all. Sitting at 6% alcohol content it had a good kick to it too.  The middle drink is the new Asahi Super Dry Black. I really like it actually. It has a darker color and is more malty in taste then the normal Asahi Super Dry. With a similar alcohol content and price, this might be my new go-to as it is in every continence store and super market. It would be too heavy to play pong or a normal drinking game with, though a good beer none the less.

The third beer in the picture is Yebisu The Hops. Apparently it's a hoppier version of then normal Yebisu, which I liked quite a lot. The hoppy version is just that, a little more hoppy. Not much more and the alcohol content was about the same too. It was good, but I would just as soon stick with the normal Yebisu.

The last two were VERY different in taste. The Organic Beer was pretty good. A smooth lager, easy to drink, nothing extremely special... Simple and tasty.  The second beer Gugutto-Nama-Kuro was possibly one of the most awful drinks I've had in a long time. it was about 68 yen a can (super cheap). The 5.3% alcohol content was the main selling point of this drink. I'm under the impression their are two drinks sold by this company "Value Fighter" and I have no inclination to try the other one.  It tasted flat when I opened the can, it was awful. To be completely honest though I got the beer as kind of a joke from a co-worker. With the understanding that if he bought it, I would drink it and write about it. Well here it is. At any rate, this post will certainly not be my last. I still have plenty of brews to try. Thanks for reading. Cheers!

Some familiar tastes.

Aooni (left) one of my  current favorites in Japan 

Over the last week I've found two new drinks which I've really liked. The first just recently appeared on the shelf at the local convenience store. I purchased it without even looking to see if there was any explanation of the beverage inside. I was sold on the can alone. Good marketing eh?

The can has a somewhat mischievous smiley face on it. I thought it looked really cool. As it was the drink is a 7% alcohol IPA (India Pale Ale).  I really like IPAs so I was not disappointed. I hope it is a constant now, but I'm thinking it might be a seasonal. Though I'm not sure.

The other new drink I had was Yebisu Premium. I did enjoy the Yebisu I had earlier so I figured, why not try the "better" one. It tasted almost exactly like Guinness. Not the extra stout, just regular. I do enjoy Guinness, although it is not my favorite. Anyway, that's all for now. Cheers!

Sorry for the delay dear readers!

It has been a mildly busy week, I have had several new drinks. Some were delicious, others less noteworthy. At any rate I'll jump right to it.

As I mentioned last week, I went to an import liquor store called Yamaya. I reviewed two of the three beverages I picked up there. The third, and probably best of the lot is called Yebisu. It has a very crisp somewhat light taste, though not a light beer. It would be easy to drink a larger quantity of this beer, and generally the price permits it too.

The next two beers were Barrel Lager Beer, and Suntory "The Premium Malt". With the former being somewhat better. The lager beer was somewhat dull in taste and nothing really great to write about. The Suntory beverage was somewhat better. Though not much different then a regular Suntory beer.

The fourth beverage in the picture above is a bottle of Fentiman's Victorian Lemonade.  Why is there lemonade in the beer blog? Well apparently it is alcoholic, though ever so slightly. I bought it, thinking it sounded familiar. Indeed I had heard about it before on The Colbert Report. It was pretty good overall. Lemonade with a little bit of a bite. Not bad.

The last and most delicious beverage on the list I acquired unexpectedly. While going out to dinner with my girlfriend and one of her friends, the gentleman who was treating us to dinner bought a bottle of local sake. We each had a sip of the sake and it was by far the best I've ever had, it was called Shimizu-no-mai. The particular kind we had was called Pure Dawn. It was super smooth, I couldn't taste the alcohol at all, and being around 15% that says something of the amazing quality of the sake. I'm curious to see how others line up with this local drink.

Anyway readers, that's all for now. Cheers!

This weeks discoveries

Well, I made a great discovery this week. At the suggestion of my girlfriend and one of her friends, I ventured to a store called Yamaya. Basically this is a chain liquor store from what I can see. It has a great selection of beer and liquor, more then I had time to browse. Though I did pick up a few beverages to sample this week. One of which I will be writing about today.

Let's just follow the picture (On left) From left to right. Asahi "Strong Off" at 7% alcohol it is indeed fairly strong, I'm not sure I have had a non-american beer with that high of an alcohol content. Really though, that was all it had going for it, no great taste to write home about.

The three new drinks I sampled this week

The second is Sapporo "Premium".  It was slightly darker then the normal Sapporo beer. Not bad, much more drinkable then the regular one, but it was well over 200 yen ($2.00) a can. So I can't see how it would be really worth drinking over the others. Reminded me of Budweiser Select, just a hair darker. Like regular bud, but in my opinion, still not worth drinking.

The third I had this week was one of the two I picked up at Yamaya. It is Tokyo Beer "Tama No Megumi" which seems (According to a quick Google search) is the same as Ishikawa? Correct me if I'm wrong. I did a little reading on the Ishikawa family, who lives in a part of Tokyo and has for over 400 years apparently. Though according to the bottle they have only been brewing since 1998.

The only other English on the bottle says "Bottle Conditioned"  a type of brewing process.  This particular drink from the Ishikawa brewery had a good mix of malty and wheaty, not being a wheat fan, it was not bad. I have had a similar taste before, but I can't remember when. Probably the Michigan Summer Beer Festival. At any rate, keep it real readers!

More oddities for the collection.

Over the last two days I had as many new beverages. The first was called Sirakami Sansui. This one, like some of the others, had a paper ribbon around the neck of the bottle. Unfortunately the only part of the ribbon I could make out was the number 12. 12th place? Who's to say...

Note the interesting tab cap on the Full Moon.

It tasted like a dark lager. With a somewhat more caramel taste then Labatt Blue or Molson. Not terrible, as I enjoy both of those drinks back home.  Though to note there was a website on the side of the bottle as well as an Email. Something I had not yet encountered. anywhere as far as I can remember. This seems to be the drink of a brewery/restaurant chain. Though as I can't read much on the web site, it will be a mystery for now.

The second beer I had was called Full Moon Beer. Finally! Something with a label I can easily read and understand. On the background of the label, there was a vague description about how the beverage has a more "Full bodied taste, after maturing a complete lunar cycle." Quite interesting I thought, so why not try it?

It had a somewhat sharp and hoppy start followed by a almost sweet and honey-like aftertaste. Very different. I can't say I can compare it to anything. Once I poured it, I was relieved to see the dark golden color. I had been worried it might be similar to Blue Moon. Of which, I'm not a huge fan. There's two more interesting beverages to add to the list. We shall see what the next week brings.

The next experience

The other day my girlfriend came home with a new beer from the same market I got the Bock from. Though to my dismay I couldn't read any of the label this time. Nothing. So I went to pouring it, hoping for the best, expecting...

Well, I expected it not to be terrible, as there was a paper label around the neck of the bottle declaring it had won some kind of award. Anyway, it was a golden brown color when poured and had a slightly wheaty taste. I'm not the biggest fan of wheat beer though so I did not enjoy it as much as others would I'm sure.  Though as far as wheat beer goes, it wasn't awful.

This brings me to my next discovery. Asahi Blue. Basically a less flavorful version of the Asahi "Dry" which I really liked. At 4% alcohol the Asahi Blue is very easy to drink. Noting the large 0 on the side of the can, it might be a light beer. Though it's still better then most light beers I have had to be fair.

Also I have had my first encounter with Japanese sake. It was much better than any I have had in the US. I don't have much to compare it to. Though this region of Japan does produce sake, I'm not sure if it is a local concoction.  I will attempt to acquire some soon though so I have a base line. I like to sample local food and drink when I can, to better appreciate the area.

At any rate it has been an interesting experience thus far. Thanks for reading. Until next time. Cheers!

First encounters of the frothy kind

Looked interesting. Why not?

Bad pic, but I got this from a vending machine!

I've been here for a few days now. So suffice to say I've had a few different beers. The first one was Ashai Super "Dry". Not too bad, I've had it before in the United States. The only difference was I got it out of a vending machine. This is cool. I've never seen anything like that.

I also had a glass of Kirin at a local restaurant. To be fair I actually liked the Ashai more.
Then yesterday I discovered a bottle featuring the red and blue demons who are rumored to live in the mountains near Akita city. The only part of the bottle I can read says "Namahage Bock".  I generally like a good bock, so I tried it.  I was not disappointed. Though the price tag was fairly high (around 550 yen) It was definitely worth it. It had a dark somewhat malty taste. It was similar to Bell's Best Brown Ale. By far the best beer I have had yet. There was a whole section with single bottles for sale at the local super market. I hope to try most of them in time. Anyway, that's all for now. Peace.

What is this about?

I have been given the opportunity to travel to Akita Japan for a few months. So I'm planning on trying the local food and especially brews to see how they differ from the many drinks at home. 

I plan on focusing on beer primarily. Being as it is one of my favorite beverages, I hope to be able to give an accurate description of how they taste and compare to some of Michigan's beers.

If you have any questions or comments don't hesitate to contact me. And feel free to comment. Thanks!