Monday, January 24, 2011

Japan Times features a German brewmaster in Otaru

Imported beer? Make that an imported brewmaster.

The Japan Times has an interesting feature on Frankfurt native Johannes Braun of Otaru Beer. In 1994, when the craft wave began in Japan thanks to law revisions, Braun was recruited to move to Otaru to create beer in the traditional styles he learned growing up.

Although he's been going strong for years and the beer is well established in the North (so I read), don't expect to find a bottle at your local liquor shop. According to the article it's only available within a 100 kilometer radios of Otaru (make travel plans accordingly).

Braun chimes in on a number of hot topics in the Japan craft world, including the sameness in offerings from the big companies, consumers who see beer as a starter to clear their throats, and a tax system that makes quality beer more expensive than swill when it should be the other way around.

Cheers to Braun for giving me one more reason to want to travel to (move to?) Hokkaido.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Free Style Beer Garden Twelve - Ise's new craft beer bar

A quick look at the new craft beer bar in Ise, featuring photos taken on my cell phone (forgot my real camera at home). 

The bar, which used to be the owners' living room, is in this nondescript building near Iseshi Station. They still live upstairs.

Sakakibara-san, who still has his day job with Ise Kadoya as a buyer and brewer, stands behind the bar. He's a nice guy and a beer lover who thinks Japanese brewers need to step up their game. 

Above the bar, you can still see the remains of the wall that used to belong to the bathroom. 

  
The menu features a variety of beers from around Japan and the world. Prices are good for craft, with a featured IPA from Brewdog coming in at 600 yen for a glass. 


The beer from Brewdog comes in what I describe as plastic orbs, which are housed inside the casing shown in the second shot.


Here's a Hardcore IPA from brewdog. I like the Punk a bit better.

There are eight beers on tap, but Sakakibara-san hopes to make the 12 in the bar's name come true one day.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

With the new year comes a new drive for craft

Since I've been home (home meaning Japan) from my trip to Oregon, I've had a few chances to try craft beer, and except for a New Year's Eve marathon that went from Caldera to Asahi to hangover, I have avoided standard beers and instead looked for ways to branch out.

I have not been disappointed. My girlfriend's father, aware that I am a beer fan, stocked the fridge at their house ahead of my visit on New Year's day. It was a thoughtful effort, which included a nice variety, but craft beer was not represented.. I of course graciously accepted what was served, but the conversation inevitably led to what kind of beer I really like. I also shared a Caldera IPA which I had brought from Oregon. They liked it, despite its bitterness blowing everything else on the table out of the prefecture.

For my return visit on the second, the daughters of the family had been instructed to obtain some Yona Yona Ale. To add to this, I brought along a few bottles of Ise Kadoya as well. It was nice to pour everyone a sampling and decide which ones we liked best. Ise Kadoya's Pale and Brown proved popular. The seasonals were a bit too festive for my taste, but among them were a decent Blonde Ale and a just-barely-too-sweet Yuzu Ale.

On a following weekend trip to Nagoya, I popped in to a liquor shop in Sakae which sells Kinshachi Beer and picked up a few offerings. I liked the IPA but ended up giving the others away without trying them (there will be a next time). On the Nagoya trip, I also visited Keg for the first time. It was easy to find thanks to the Beer in Japan app, and I was pleased to start my session with a Shiga Kogen IPA. I had a few more offerings, all that I had not tried before, and enjoyed them all. My only regret was that I couldn't stay longer (there will, of course, be a next time).

More recently, a friend and I hit up Ise Kadoya's Biyagura for a 2-hour nomihoudai (available on the regular menu at under 2,000 yen). There were three seasonals on tap, including the aforementioned Blonde Ale, a "Nut's Brown Porter" (sic) and a ginger flavored beer. The Blonde is nice and I quite enjoyed the Nut's Brown, but the ginger was best kept in sampler size. Of course, after two hours, we were decently drunk and quite satisfied. The brown and pale are always there for you when last order comes around.

In all, I have mostly avoided the standard beers while trying a wider variety of craft than I had normally availed myself too. I hope I can keep it up. Perhaps it's time to branch out to a web order from Ezo?


(I'll add some pictures to this post later)

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Heady travels in the land of beer

During my two weeks in Oregon, I had but one (maybe more like one-half) can of Weasel Piss, the nickname my brother Phil and I use for mainline beer. In this case, it was a Pabst Blue Ribbon, partially consumed and then slapped from by hands by a smoking bartender as I (drunkenly and illegally) tried to carry it from a Pendleton bar to the sidewalk (oops).


(Disclaimer: I've been living in Japan for 3.5 years, and open container rules don't operate ... guess I was a bit rusty? Also you can drink in a car as long as you aren't driving that day, in which case it's zero tolerance.) 

Our choice to go to that bar in the first place was indeed a mistake, as we had already consumed plenty of booze from the Prodigal Son Brewery and Pub a few blocks east (this was a amid a series of mistakes that make up a larger story to be told at a later time).

But the bad decisions made on that night are overshadowed, perhaps, by the overall walk away from mainstream beer into an exclusive craft beer diet (I also did not drink an ounce of soda/pop on the trip ... a first for me).

Where better than Portland, Oregon, and a couple other Oregon towns, to stay on a The Path of good beer. On my first day in Portland, Phil and his fiancee and I went to the Hopworks Urban Brewery for a delicious pizza a couple of pints. My first choice was my first craft crush: IPA. Among the three of us, we sampled about five different offerings from HUB, and all were very nice.

HUB's claim to fame, besides the good beer they produce, is that it is an organic and sustainable operation, concepts that fit in perfectly in Portland. The place was busy on an early-vacation-period weeknight, with a 30 minute wait for tables in the dining room. Over in the bar, though, you can seat yourself if you find a table. Phil's fiancee, Julia, managed to score a table after a successful bout of hovering near a guy who looked to be almost done (he had two growler's full of delicious-looking beer).

We tapped in to the growler scene ourselves down Interstate 84 in Pendleton. My mother recently moved from 10 minutes out of town to a loft overlooking downtown. Imagine a loft, then think bigger. The cascading space features high ceilings with vents snaking across them, gaping windows looking out on a snow-covered main street, and a loft-within-the-loft to break up the vast real estate spanning from the kitchen to the eastern wall.

And to top off the beautiful surroundings, the apartment sits a few minutes away from the freshly opened (well, fresh as in it opened in 2010) Prodigal Son Brewery and Pub, at present Pendleton's only craft brewery (bar chat revealed rumors of a possible brewery in the works, though noting is official). The large seating area, though rarely full when we visited, has a very homey ambiance, and we felt very comfortable sitting down on chairs and couches around what we might call a coffee table if it wasn't in a brewpub.

In all we made three visits here, plus one growler fill for the road (the road back to the apartment, not the one back to Portland -- I haven't totally forgotten Oregon liquor laws).

I had a short fling with their IPA, boldly declaring it my favorite IPA of the trip so far, though this was later retracted when I met a Stone Ruination IPA at a bottle shop in Portland.

Prodigal Son is picking up steam as their beers are making the trip to Portland-area tap houses and getting noticed in the amid the crowded craft scene in Oregon.

My eventual favorite of the bunch, the Bruce/Lee Porter, was recently honored with the "Satori Award" for 2010 on an Oregon beer blog. 

The next stop on my beer journey was Corvallis, where I attended Oregon State University and where my dad and stepmother live. Corvallis now boasts two local brewpubs (in addition to a pair of northwest chain McMenamins locations). For a late lunch one day, I headed to the only one I hadn't been to: Flat Tail Brewing.

Here, I went directly for the tasting tray, which featured eight beers (seven by Flat Tail and one guest beer from Ninkasi of Eugune). I found the line-up very enjoyable, and ended up picking the Amber as my favorite owing to its wonderful balance.


One brewpub per town was not the end of my craft beer experience in Oregon. Even trips to the supermarket feature a wide selection of craft beer (convenience stores, too, stock a few varieties beyond Bud Light).

For an even larger selection, I made two trips to Belmont Station, a bottle shop with a tap room attached. Being a Japan beer blogger, I inquired about what Japanese beer they had available or have had in the past. No sign or memory of Ise Kadoya, though I believe it's available in another shop in town. Also nothing from Baird, though they guy at the register said they used to have it. He said it didn't sell very well. This was a little surprising, so I asked if he had any idea why. He did not. My guess could be that if people are looking for a beer from Japan, they want something that screams "JAPAN" - and perhaps the Western name isn't Japanesey enough. Or something. I could be way off. For whatever reason, only a small selection of Hitachino Nest shares space with Asashi Super Dry in the Japan section of the "other" category in the world beer area.

Now, it's back to a rotation of Yona Yona, Ise Kadoya, and whatever else I can get my hands on without dropping too much cash.

Today, it shall be exactly that at a sukiyaki dinner. We got six Yona Yonas and a host of Ise Kadoya options, ranging from the standard pale and brown ales to a seasonal maple cinnamon offering. 

I'll return later with a post looking ahead to the new year, which may reveal a bold New Year's resolution that will probably be impossible to keep. Cheers!