Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Cloudy Recollection

Rainy season has begun, announced here in Mie by a steady cloud cover since Sunday and then confirmed by the official, seemingly unnecessary, declaration by the government weather bureau.

I'm sure some brewers have already thought of the idea of a "Rainy Season Ale" or something along those lines, but regardless of names, the muggy, wet weeks to come will certainly be aided by a few good beers.

On Wednesday, at Ise Kadoya's nomihoudai night, I sampled a few beers from around Japan. Unfortunately I sampled a few too many and left without the menu which has details about the guest beers. But I do recall that there was a decent brown ale from Tochigi on the guest list.

The event returns this week, but I am not sure now if I will make it. If I do I will shoot for a more documentary approach (in contrast to last week's marathon two-hour get-fuzzy-based approach).

Meanwhile, the next several weeks will see trips to Kyoto/Osaka and perhaps even Tokyo. I hope to include some beer stops while traveling around and will include any findings here. Recommendations are welcome, but I'll also surely tap the Beer in Japan iPhone app.

In the last several months, I have hit the bars a bit too much and I have been feeling it in the wallet. I am officially going on a bar hiatus, with and important exception: bars serving craft beer are acceptable. It's a mixed blessing that such bars are hard to come by down here in rural Mie. But hopefully with some savings recouped from taking it easy on the regular stuff, I can travel and try out some good stuff.

More to come, hopefully this weekend, as I aim for my first trip out of Mie since April.

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