Moving North

I last posted from the week of my wedding, way back in March. Life as a married person has been fairly smooth, though as opposed to "settling down" we are getting ready to change jobs and move very soon. While our plans are not totally decided, we are moving to Sapporo in Hokkaido.

Of course, I will keep this blog going, and you'll probably notice a shift toward Hokkaido beers and the scene in Sapporo. On that topic, I just came back from a quick trip to Sapporo, and on this occasion I visited two craft beer establishments.

One was Adanonki, a used book store that has two taps and a nice selection of bottles. The atmosphere is very laid back, the location is convenient, and the 11 Pale Ale from Akita's Aqula was fantastic.

The second place, Kalahana, was (like Adanonki) featured in the Japan Beer Times Sapporo article from May 2011. We were actually walking down the covered street it sits on with plans to dine elsewhere, but the gravitational force of craft beer pulled me in. My wife, despite not being a big fan of the average beer, enjoyed a cider, which Kalahana wisely features. The food was nice too. This time we opted for a Greek salad, chicken and chips, and onion rings. Not long ago, on a previous visit to Hokkaido, I went to Otaru Beer's Leibspeise in Sapporo, an experience I wrote about for JapanTourist. On the same trip, I also stopped in to Beer Bar North Island, where I enjoyed two seasonal IPAs. 

There are still other places to check out in Sapporo and further afield in Hokkaido, including one place in my likely-neighborhood-to-be that may have hand pump Yona Yona. Stand by or urgent updates on this topic.

KANSAI SCENE 

Meanwhile, I wrote an article that appears in this month's Kansai Scene magazine about the craft beer scene in the region. It doesn't go too deep into the details, but I hope it provides a nice overview. [Note: as of this writing, the photo that appears with the article on the website is clearly incorrect. You can see how the article was presented in the printed version by clicking on the page gallery.]

In doing interviews for that article, I ended up with a lot more information than could fit into the article. Over the next couple of weeks I will release some of that content. Stay tuned!