West of the tower, south of the park

After hearing two weeks ago about a liquor store in Susukino (the nightlife area of Sapporo) that stocks some imported craft beer, I remembered the name of the place but not the address the next morning. Tonight, I stumbled across Momoya and left with some cans of Caldera beer (from Ashland, Oregon).

From Caldera, I went for the IPA and the Amber Ale. To mix things up, I grabbed a Modus Hoperandi IPA from Ska Brewing, which I had never tried (until moments go / it is good). 

The S is missing

It's nice to find a liquor store in town that stocks some variety. They don't carry in Japanese craft beer, but I'll be glad to stop in once in while to pick up something from the states (even if it's more of what I grabbed tonight). 

Momoya is at the corner of Minami 5 and West 5. Wait! Fortunately you don't need any map software to find places in Sapporo. You just need these two numbers (I'm talking only in the downtown area of course). Minami means south, so Minami 5 means 5 blocks south of Odori Park, the several-blocks-long park that spans a huge east-west chunk of the city center. Nishi means west, and the count starts from the brightly lit TV tower at the west end of the park. So Minami 5 Nishi 5 means five blocks west of the TV tower and five blocks south of Odori Park. Trust me, it's easy once you get to know the place a bit.

What makes this night even better was that I was on the way home from Higurashi, the only other craft beer bar in town that I'd yet to visit. More on that in another post.

See you at 5-5!

From Oregon, with beer

I may have mentioned my fiancee once or twice on the blog, but indeed I am getting married very soon. To celebrate the occasion, my family is joining us in Japan, starting today with my brother and his wife and my mother and her husband. My brother Phil and his wife Julia are staying at my place, and they brought along many fine gifts, including these Oregon beers:

Although he was exhausted, my brother and I enjoyed a couple of these already, and it's nice to have a taste of home. Phil was wearing a matching sweatshirt:

I also got this T-shirt, which I'll proudly wear to an upcoming social function (not my wedding, though maybe the after party?):

Overall, I'm very happy to be with family. It's great that nice beer can be involved as well. I'll stop here, as I've got a long week ahead, and I still haven't finished buying beer for the after party.

Cans on the Radio

My homestate public radio station back in Oregon just did a report on craft beer in cans. Not only is it fun to read the text of the story and pretend you're a radio reporter (just me?), it's a good look at the changing attitudes on the topic.

On my most recent trip to Portland for my brother's wedding, the stigma was alive and well with one of the groomsmen, who said he felt that craft in cans was simply not right.

In the article, a pub owner points this out: 

"As of this week, there are 131 craft brewers nationwide that are either canning, or in the late stages of canning. Yeah, it’s a trend, I would say the biggest trend in craft-brewing right now"

It further lists reasons for accepting cans:

-Keeps the beer fresher

-Lighter, easier to transport

-Easier to recycle

Any downside? Besides the stigma, the article notes that it is more expensive to run a canning line, which may make it difficult to the smaller of the small brewers.

Here in Japan, we have seen a few brewers produce cans. Yona Yona was on the shelves in cans when I got here in 2007, and they are definitely among the leaders. I have recently seen Coedo and Echigo beers in cans even out here in Inaka Mie. It would be great to see more Japanese brewers follow suit, especially the other mainstays leading the field already in quality and availability.

In Japan, the stigma issue is probably larger than back in the states. Already, craft beer is seen as foreign, exotic, and essentially "not beer-like." That's because the image of "beer" is a light lager, golden in color, with 30 percent head for good measure. Many craft producers here treat their product like it's some sort of holy nectar, adorning their cans with colorful foil toppings (I'm looking at you, Kinshachi).

Of course, I balance my bite here with general respect toward the still-maturing industry. I'll accept anything that's good, in a glass or a bottle or a can.

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.

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!

JapanBrew heads to Oregon, where the beer flows like wine ...

When the temperatures in Ise dip to those just-above-freezing levels, and a dry cool breeze moves in from the northwest, I know its time to get out of here, across the Pacific and to the Northwest.

Just two more days at work and I'll be on the road.

I was born in Eastern Oregon, down the interstate a few hours from Portland, a craft-brewing powerhouse that boasts a number of beer-related statistics, helpfully furnished by the city's tourism wing:

• Portland has more breweries than any other city in the world. There are 30 craft breweries within the city limits; 38 in the Portland metro area.
• According to the Oregon Brewers Guild, no matter where you are in Portland, you're never more than 15 minutes from a craft brewery.
• Among "hopheads" (beer lovers), Portland's nicknames include "Beervana," "Brewtopia" and "Munich on the Willamette."
• Portland is home to the nation's best-attended beer bash: the Oregon Brewers Festival. More than 50,000 people enjoy this annual riverfront event, which takes place the last full weekend of July.
• Portland has a 3 percent market share of the more than 1,400 breweries and brewpubs in the United States. 

And while I cannot claim Portland as my real home town, I can claim Oregon and the Northwest in general. My first sip of beer came at age 17, on my birthday, in the form of a can of Natty Ice or something sinister like that (my older brother, on summer break from university, was the provider).

Through my days at Oregon State University in Corvallis, I developed a taste for craft beer, though I had my share of Pabst Blue Ribbon along the way.

Now, every trip home is a chance to try something new. So many places in Portland have craft beer on tap or in bottles, and even if you went in at noon for a sandwich, you'll find yourself tempted by the beer cooler.

My three-city tour (Portland, Pendleton and Corvallis) of Oregon will be, at least in part, beer-fueled. In Portland, where my older brother and his fiancee live, I have the on-the-ground reality of those aforementioned statistics. In Pendleton, where my mother lives, I can look forward to my first look at the newly opened Prodigal Son Brewery and Pub downtown. Even Corvallis, where my father and stepmother live, has something new, in the form of the Block 15 Brewery and Restaurant. (correction: Block 15 opened a few years back. The new brewpub in Corvallis is Flat Tail.)

All this beer talk, though exciting, does draw attention from the fact that the main reason for the visit is to see family, who put up with me living on the other side of the world. But I think the quality of our time together will be heightened thanks to the beer (and food) culture of our cities and towns.

As much as I can, I'll report on my trip from the road. To other winter travelers, have a safe, enjoyable holiday.

Beer in North Korea - Digging Deeper

The beer in North Korea post prompted a couple of replies via Twitter:

Says@chuwyboy :

@JapanBrew They took apart a British brewery and shipped it all over to the north. Ironic thing was the brewery wasnt very god to start with

And from@beerinjapan

@JapanBrew I've been to North Korea and had that beer. NK isn't featured in my Beer in Korea app tho :)

Chuwy's post references the story told in this article from The Wiltshire Times. It leads off with this:

The Ushers brewery in Trowbridge used to produce award-winning traditional British real ales. After an extraordinary journey, it is now being used to brew a beer dubbed the "Pride of Pyongyang" in North Korea.

The article goes on to tell the rather amazing tale of how the brewery was taken apart and shipped to North Korea, where it was reassembled and put to work churning out DPRK beer. The people involved in the sale, from the brewery's former owner to a German go-between, recount the details of the exchange.

For one more angle on this exciting story, can we find any details in the WikiLeaks trove?

Beer in (North) Korea?

A New York Times article, retelling a Western scholar's reports of conditions in North Korea amid the recent tensions, contains this tidbit:

A beer factory was operating, however, and the visitor pronounced the Taedong River beer, a local brand, “very drinkable.”

Turns out, a Google query leads to plenty of info about the brew. A Wikipedia page describes the brewery's beginnings. A BBC article from 2009 tells of a TV ad for the beer, which was marketed as "Pride of Pyongyang." There are YouTube videos and a host of other info I have yet to read or watch.

Has anyone out there sampled this stuff?

Meanwhile, here is the commercial -

Beer in Korea

Two weeks ago, I downloaded an iPhone application for studying Hangul, the Korean writing system. Two hours ago, I downloaded Beer in Korea, the app for finding craft beer. The 10 minutes I spent browsing the beer app trumps the time spent on the Hangul app by roughly 9 minutes.

So maybe I won't be reading any Hangul, but if I can find the time, I might be trying an interesting beer.

My time in Korea will be so limited,, outside of perhaps one afternoon, that I have not been too worried about learning Korean. Multi-lingual signage, the help of friends and intuition should steer me just fine (I hope).

The trip revolves around a wedding ceremony for two friends who live in my little town in Mie. He is Japanese and runs a nice little bar in town (Premium Malts on tap; Corona, Sam Adams among bottled choices). She is Korean, and teaches her native tongue in a classroom adjacent to the bar.

They already tied the knot here in Japan, but in lieu of a formal ceremony, the bond was celebrated by a surprise party at the bar.

Now, the formal part comes in Korea. A few dozen friends of the couple from Japan are making the trip across the Sea of Japan (aka East Sea if you're Korean) to attend the wedding.

It marks my first trip to Korea, and aside from the wedding I am very much looking forward to limited exploring, eating and drinking.

And while my Hangul skills are certainly suspect, at least I have Beer in Korea to guide me as best it can.


---

Practically speaking, although my trip comes next week, I can already endorse the Beer in Korea app. Even the background information in the app served as a nice primer about what I might encounter, and the frank descriptions make clear what bars to hit and which to miss. Whether or not I'll get to any of the listed bars on this trip is yet to be determined. But either way, I'm glad to have the app in the books.

Which Ise Kadoya beer would you stock in your shop?

If you were running a wine shop in an Oregon college town, and you were in the process of expanding to craft/world beers, which of Ise Kadoya's export offerings would you add to your line-up?

This is the question faced by my stepmother and father. She runs the wine shop full time, while my father helps out when he's not occupied by his main job.

On his recent trip to Japan, I took my dad to Ise Kadoya's Biyagura and the Great Japan Beer Festival in Osaka. All of that drinking, we decided, was marketing research.

Right.

But really, my dad e-mailed this morning asking which Ise Kadoya beer they should stock. Not an easy question.

Here is the lineup available from their U.S. distributor, Shleton Brothers:

Triple Hop Ale
Presently on tap at Biyagura, this seasonal is very nice. Oregon craft beer types tend to go for the hoppy brews, and the "triple" label might attract curious consumers.

Brown Ale
As a regular tap at Biyagura, the Brown Ale has become one of my favorites from Ise Kadoya. It would serve as a fine representative of Ise Kadoya's quality, but does it lack a certain flash?

Genmai Ale
Another seasonal recently on tap at Biyagura, the Genmai Ale is a unique offering. Probably a good one to have on stock for a store boasting a huge beer selection, but not a must-have for a wine shop expanding to craft/world beer.

IPA
Oregonains love their IPA. And college students, be they hop-heads or not, like the higher alcohol content. Splash the 7 percent on promotional literature and perhaps some recently anointed legal drinkers will be drawn in. Plus, it's a tasty brew (although I have not had a sip for months upon months).

Pale Ale
This is another very nice regular offering from Ise Kadoya. I tend toward the Brown in a head-to-head but the Pale can be a very nice somewhat lighter experience.

Scotch Ale
Never tried this or seen it. Anyone?

Stout
Another regular offering, the Stout is pretty tasty. But there's no way it could gain a following in the land of Deschutes Black Butte Porter.

So after all that, I'm still torn between the IPA and the Brown Ale, with the Triple Hop in the mix for good measure. Where do you stand? Help stock the shelves with the right choice!

Hunting for IPA at the Great Japan Beer Festival

At half passed four, we walked to the station in front of the Kyocera Dome along with dejected fans of the Orix Buffaloes, who had just taken a 9-2 beating courtesy of the Softbank Hawks.

We were in a decidedly better mood, having just descended from the Sky Hall, high in the Dome's upper quarters, where Day 2 of the Great Japan Beer Festival was winding down.

Besides the buzz from a day of sampling craft beers, we also could hold our heads high knowing that on Monday evening, we would take in a Hanshin Tigers game. The Tigers, in second place in the Central League just behind the powerhouse Giants, were in a much better position to come out ahead over the slumping Carp of Hiroshima.

Back upstairs, in the curving Sky Hall, beer enthusiasts of all stripes were finishing the day, some in better shape than others. Security staff in orange shirts kept the peace by making sure people did not sit -- or even squat -- on the floor. Tap operators in Official Orange Shirts were either lonely or busy, since at the late hour of the event most people had identified winners and losers and were heading for one last sip of their favorite.

Not that you could reasonably expect to have tried every beer available in one day. With well over 100 choices, we decided early to approach with caution and some level of discrimination. We tried some fruity stuff, but I quickly scanned for IPAs. Then we started finding brands we knew, including some from back home. Then, we found the Minoh taps. Until yesterday, I had only heard of Minoh, an Osaka-based brewery. The Minnoh menu included a Weizen, a Pale Ale, a Stout, a Real Ale Coffee Stout, a Real Ale Lucky 13 IPA, and a potato beer called "Spud Suds." All were pretty good, but of course I'm a sucker for IPA.

END OF PART 1
(since it is almost time to head toward Koshien for the Tigers game.)

ESPN's Page 2 offers The World Cup of Beer

In a group by group breakdown, ESPN.com's Page 2 has created a World Cup of Beer, going so far as to "advance" two countries' beer entries after offering some quick(and dirty) analysis.

What is especially interesting, not surprisingly, is the unknown, such as the beer entries for countries that don't exactly resonate as beer destinations. (Like the entry for Group E's Cameroon, pictured at right.)

Also not surprisingly, Japan is represented by Kirin. The photo shows an Ichiban Shibori -- not a bad rep for the Big Five -- but the write-up references the company's special World Cup edition, which is nothing more than Tanrei happoshu in a different suit.

It seems clear that Page 2 did not attempt to find good beer from the World Cup countries. Rather, they selected a beer that best represents each country according to conventional wisdom.

Fair enough. But I bet we all agree a comprehensive look at the best beer from World Cup countries would be far more interesting (and tasty).