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!