Well, the weekend is over--and what a good one it was. Friday night me and the old lady headed down to Tahara, where we met up with Nate for a couple relaxing brews. Saturday morning we were up at 5am to catch the first bus to Irago and the first ferry to Toba. From there we made our way to Ise, where we drank Sinto beer before touring the Shine. After the Shrine, and Ise Kuni Organic beer, we hailed a cab and headed to Biyagura to visit Ise Kadoya Brewery. At Ise Kadoya we talked to Masakazu Nakanishi, brewmaster of their excellent beers!! I will be posting about all of these beers and happenings this week, as soon as the work I get paid to do is finished! Until then, check out Ise Kadoya's English site, which is the best English site of any Japanese brewer hands down.
Masakazu Nakanishi is truly a badass--a real man among boys. I will tell you more about him and what he had to say this week, but for now, I'll let him tell you in his own words:
With almost 12 years of brewing experience, I have been Ise Kadoya's brewery manager since 1999. There are two greatly important tasks given to me as a brewer. The first is to create a mash that captures the essence of the malt—not too rough or unclear but rather well-defined and the second is the handling the yeast, the amount, timing, and to know when to leave well enough alone. This is easy to WRITE, but much more difficult to DO since beers are living, growing entities. But I know that if I can create the best environment for this to happen, my ultimate job is to simply step aside and let the natural process of fermentation take over and do the work by itself.*
*From Ise Kadoya's site
9 comments:
Men's Health has an old list of the best Asian beers from Joe Tucker of ratebeer.com. You had any of them?:
Asahi Kuronama Black
Baird Rising Sun Pale Ale
Kiuchi Hitachino Nest Beers
San Miguel Premium Lager
Ethan, I'm going to have to find Joe Tucker. Who in the hell is that?
Baird Beer = Great
Nest Beer = Pretty good, the Japanese standard
San Miguel = WHAT IN THE HELL?
Asahi Kuronama Black = Piss Poor excuse for a dark beer, I avoid it at all costs. I'll drink the super dry before this stuff.
That's 50% in my book, and that won't get you any awards where we came from.
Interesting. I'll be on the look out for Baird and Nest. Yeah, San Miguel did not exactly strike me as a very Asian sounding name. Wait, I just flipped back to the article (actually its' just a small insert in a cooking article) and San Miguel is a Filipino beer. That makes more sense. This Joe Tucker is president of RateBeer.com. I'll have to check out the web site. Does your site have an el presidente?
Just looked at the site. It's somewhat interesting. People rate the beers they try and the ratings are then averaged to rank beers. Of course, like any rating system set up like this a beer can be skewed by too few ratings, palates differ etc., but it's still an interesting guide. You can search by country as well. Take a look and see if you agree with the Japan rankings.
San Miguel is made in Hong Kong. You can buy it in all the convenience stores over there. It is your run of the mill light lager. Not bad, not great. There is a Hong Kong beer called King Fisher that blows San Miquel of the island. Good stuff for cheap.
Baird's Teikoku IPA is a step up from the pale ale, but rising sun has a cooler label.
correction - San Miguel has a brewery in Hong Kong, among other places.
I got thrown out of rate beer.
Yeah, half of those beers are complete piss. Personally, I don't even rate Nest that highly, though many people do (do like their classic IPA). There are far more good beers just in Japan, better than San Miguel (although their beers aren't all the same - like the Sri Lankan Lion Stout is so much better than their lager), certainly.
Don't even look at the big 4 for quality stuff. U got so many, like Shonan, Fujisakura, Minoh, Bayernmeister, Isekadoya, Iwate Kura, Baeren, Shinano, Ozenoyukidoke, Inowashiro, Yaho, Kinshachi ( not fond of them), Sankt Gallen (same there) and amny, many more.
Best Asian beers?
Not an easy task and it seems like old Joe has rather brushed over the subject or based his opinions on the onbaord selection of a long distance flight. Perhasp Asahi super Shite was the other beer on the menu that didn't quite make his list. Rising sun is a good beer, tough. My two pence.
Dear Daniel!
Greetings!
The only Sunday I would definitely sure to be free (that is unless other Sundays are rained out for cricket) would be March 15th!
Cheers,
Robert-Gilles
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