I have a soft spot for BrewDog, those punky craft brewers from Scotland. I was thrilled when they started exporting their beers throughout Japan as in my small city Punk IPA was just about the best thing going. I’ve written about them twice before, a general overview when the first started exporting and a followup […]
An effect of the craft beer revolution has been the revitalization and popularization of ancient, little known styles. Recently gose, a salty, sour German wheat beer, has become a big hit with brewers and drinkers all over America. The story of gose (pronounced go-zuh) starts in the town of Goslar, in the province of Saxony. […]
As I talked about last week, I poured at a local beer festival this past Sunday. It was a fantastic experience, with live music, lots of beer, and plenty of great conversations about the beer! Japan has a lot of beer festivals, but any one city may only have one or two a year. (Tokyo […]
In Japan a trip to a beer festival can be a great way to both get your hands on hard to find beers and enjoy a day out with friends. Here in the States its easier to find good beer, but there is still plenty of appeal in having a large array of different brewers […]
Last month I started work as a “Beer Smith” aka bartender at Fiction Beer Company, one of the many local nano-breweries. It’s been great being involved in the actual industry, and is a nice chance to learn and chat about the processes of brewing and serving craft beer. As befits the name everything in Fiction […]
I have never hid my love of hops. The complex aromas and flavors that waft off of a good hoppy beer are unparalleled. However, there are three primary ingredients to beer, and I am starting to give barley malt a bit more credit. Without doubt malt is the backbone of beer. One of the first […]
Up in Hokkaido sits Otaru Beer, a Japanese brewery dedicated to brewing strict German styles. Luckily, you don’t have to visit the little town of Otaru to sample their beers as they are available in central Tokyo. The Beer Horn bar, in Akasaka, serves up Otaru beers in actual animal horns. This was something my […]
While craft breweries are certainly catching on in a big way with drinkers, small batch craft whiskey distilleries are right behind them. One of the leaders in the new wave of whiskey manufacturers is right down the street, Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey. Luckily for me, they offer free tours seven days a week, so I thought […]
Any Japanese supermarket or convenience store has a dizzying array of beer options. However, a closer look at the labels will reveal that most of these beers are in fact “happoshu” (発泡酒 ) a low malt beer variant that could be compared to warm dishwater. Why would this sort of product have more shelf space […]
The hardest part about homebrewing is the waiting. Once your brew day is over you have to wait through the fermentation, dry hopping, and then carbonating and aging in the bottle before it is ready to drink. Even though I have been back in the US for a while now, the two beers we have […]
