From CNNGo comes a
light-hearted look at the "zero craze" in Japan, including swill like Suntory's All Free, which is free of calories, alcohol and meaning. The article contains this mysterious passage:
Never mind that it costs more to down a can of All Free (alcohol-free, calorie-free, sugar-free) beer-wannabe liquid than the real stuff, at ¥138 for a 350ml can. Real beer that can be bought for as little as ¥90.
Let's ignore the mysterious grammatical issues and ask this question: What "real" beer costs 90 yen? Answer: None. Perhaps the author is referring to happoshu or third-category trash? Don't wanna know.
Kyodo News reports on the not-surprising decline of beer shipments in August compared with last year. Sadly, also this:
Shipments of less expensive, so-called third-category beer-like alcoholic drinks rose 8% to 13.08 million cases, an all-time high for August, mirroring the tendency of consumers to tighten their purse strings, with Kirin’s ‘‘Nodogoshi Nama’’ and Asahi’s ‘‘Clear Asahi,’’ being particularly popular.
So-called third-category beer-like alcoholic drinks. Just the fact that it takes so many words and hyphens to describe the product is enough to cause concern. Then, if you actually taste the stuff ... spit it out. Buy a beer!
That does it for today ... if I can avoid blog-neglect, I'll aim to keep abreast of the latest Japan beer news.
For now, happy drinking, and see you on
twitter.
Hitachino nest actually makes an alcohol free beer. I nearly shot beer out my nose laughing when I saw it on the menu in Keg Nagoya, but then my host family brother ordered it. Why? He was driving. It made sense to me then, and at least the Nest 0% beer tasted like a craft beer. Companies have done really well with these beers since the Zero tolerance laws started and public campaigns kicked off in full force following a spate of horrific drunk driving tragedies.
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