Okinawan Adventure!

Hello!
I recently was able to travel to Okinawa in southern Japan for a vacation.  Besides doing some amazing sight seeing and snorkeling I was able to try some of the local beer selection, and as a whole I was not disappointed.

First off I will start with the larger of the beer companies, Orion. As I had previously had it, it was not high on my must have list for the trip. It was however a very drinkable pilsner, I enjoyed a few mugs of it while I was able to get it on tap. Nothing amazing, it reminded me of Kirin probably more then anything else.

Next I will mention the highlight of the trip Helios Brew Pub. With five very different brews on tap it was a fantastic place to try, the food was good too!

I ordered the sampler set, a 1100 yen investment I don't regret. It started with the Blue Sky & Ocean, a German style weizen. Good, but as I have mentioned before I'm not too fond of wheaty beers. The next was a very unique beer, the Goya Dry. As one might expect from a goya, quite bitter. An interesting flavor mixed with the light beer, a bit strange, though not terrible. The next was the German Lager, which had a great full flavor, not too strong, but rich. The next was a English style Pale Ale, overall not bad, a great hoppy flavor with a crisp finish . The last and darkest was the English style Porter, a smooth heavy taste, very filling with a slight hint of caramel another good beer.

As it is I only ordered one proper beer and choose the English style Pale Ale. It was surprisingly my favorite of the five.

The next night we went to a strange American style bar near our hotel. I was able to sample another Okinawan local,  Nanto Brewery's Nihede Beer (hard). As it
is I didn't get to try the (soft) version so sadly I can't compare. As for the Nihede (hard) It was enjoyable overall if not horribly over priced something like 600 yen a bottle. There was some flavor that reminded me of a brown ale, somewhat malty but, with less body.  It was fairly drinkable a slight caramel undertone, as well as a bit of a mild aftertaste. Overall not a loss.

As a whole I would say my trip to Okinawa was amazing. I got to see some great sights and drink some great beer.  Not to mention I was able to get out of the awful spring weather Akita has presented us. Hopefully in my next update I will be able to review some of the Okinawan sake I bought. No snake in the jar but cool stuff for sure.

Until next time.
Cheers!

Beer tasting party

Hello again! Sorry for the delay! Work has been crazy as usual. So, as I promised earlier I have taken some note of one of the more recent beer filled adventures I have had in Japan.  Last month I had some friends over and we sampled several beers from around the world.

Kanpai!

Starting on the left we have Coedo from Saitama Japan, the brown is quite good, can't say I remember the blue can as well (good or bad?).  Next we have Satan Red from Belgium, and yes, there was a toast to Satan for this beer. Very metal. It was a fairly strong and heavy taste, a reasonably ABV too.  Following the Satan Red we have a hometown brew for me: The Ypsi Gypsi from Arbor Brewing Company. The Gypsi is a pale ale, with some good flavor, and like some of the other brews I brought to the table, a taste of home. Next there is Samurai from Great Divide Brewing in Colorado. It's apparently a rice beer. Though none of us were terribly fond of it. There was a slight sakeish taste to it, overall an odd drink.  The next two were German, Sorry I have no more insight, no one at the party could read or speak German. I do recall them being fairly dark in color and full flavor as many German drinks tend to be. The next is Mc Chouffe from Brasserie d'Achouffe. It had a slightly fruity taste from what I recall. Not my favorite as some of my readers might note. Overall not a loss though. 

Ben, myself, Tom and Yuki admiring the collection.

Continuing from the left we have several more Michigan brews, starting with  Dirty Bastard from Founders. Personally my favorite from the lot. The Scotch style ale sits at 8.5% ABV. Very solid, great color, with a rich full taste. The next two are brown ales, the first is  Best Brown Ale, from Bells Brewery, another great Michigan brewery The next is Nut Brown from Arcadia Ales in Battle Creek.  A slightly nutty taste as the name would suggest, a full bodied beer with an overall great taste. The next pictured is Siren a amber ale from North Peak Brewing. Very easy to drink, a light malty taste from what I remember. The next two are also from Arcadia, sampler 12 packs are a win in my book. Japanese breweries need to take note of this.  First the is the IPA, 5.9% ABV, with a great hop flavor, and a slight nutty aftertaste. A good IPA, (Then again I'm partial to IPAs). The last one is another Scotch style ale, Loch Down sitting at 8.3% ABV it is a very hearty drink. Slight alcohol taste, not bad, but a little different then most of the previously mentioned drinks. Overall a very rich full flavor though. Likely one I would buy again in the future. 

Yuki, Tomohiro and Mori 

Yuki posing with the cap from the
Satan Red.

As a whole the party went really well! My guests were pleased with the selection of brews from around the world, though not as many as I would have liked, I think everyone had a great time. I hope to get the opportunity to have a similar event soon. Thanks for reading!
Cheers!

Thanks to Sarah for taking all of the pictures!

A much needed and long overdue post!

Dear readers, I apologize once again for lagging in my duties to provide new and interesting commentary about the beverages of this country. Again, I have been quite busy. As it is I am planning on hosting a beer tasting party this weekend. I brought back several bottles of Michigan micro brew to share with some of my local friends. I hope to take some photos and post about it soon. *Crosses fingers*

Anyway, I'll share what I have neglected to post about for so long.  A few months ago I tried several beers I picked up at the local import shop. (I'm pretty sure all of the employees at Yamaya know me).

From left to right we have: Old Crafty Hen Vintage Style Ale, Mahou Negra, Leffe (I believe it was a Belgian style brown ale), Vedett a white ale, and Old Foghorn from Anchor brewery, barleywine style ale.


From what I recall, the Old Crafty Hen was pretty good. A rich flavor, something like 6% alcohol and tasted great at room temperature. I was not so impressed with Mahou Negra, it was a dark beer, something akin to a Guinness. I believe it was from Spain, decent flavor, just not my favorite.  The Leffe was good from what I recall a bit pricey, something like 600 yen. Worth it though for a good drink.  Vedett was tough for me. As some of my readers might know I'm not an avid wheat beer drinker. This was VERY wheaty. It was a struggle to finish, though one of my co-workers is quite fond of them. To each their own I suppose. But, it was "For Science!" So I decided to try one anyway.  As for the last one Old Foghorn, I thought it was pretty good. It was slightly different from what I recall, (might need to try another bottle!) again though very pricey, around 500 yen. There were several others from Anchor Brewery which I might try in the future.

The two on the right were purchased at Lake Tazawako during one of my camp trips this summer. I recall the one with the yellow label not being anything special, it tasted just like a normal lager, kind of bland.  The grey labeled bottle I do not directly recall. I remember it was better then the yellow one, in my opinion, sadly no specifics. Sorry!

On a funny side note, when I was home in Michigan over Christmas I went to a local grocery store to look for beer. I was surprised to see Sapporo one of Japan's large beer companies represented. A six pack of bottles cost something like 7 dollars. It's funny, because that is definitely cheaper then what it cost in Akita. The same pack would easily cost double that in yen, if not more. How it's cheaper? Not exactly sure, probably something to do with taxes and the price of brewing materials between the U.S. and Japan. It was an interesting find to be sure.

Anyway sorry for the ill informed belated post. Hopefully the beer tasting party will go well and I'll have some more stuff to share.

-Cheers!

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!