Beer Circus in Nagoya

The friday night before the saturday hanami when the amazing picture from the previous post was taken, Miyuki and I met up with some friends at Kinshachi's Beer Circus in Nagoya. We called the place from the train to make sure they were open. ALot of times, the building is rented out for a party and average Joe off the street can't get a seat. This is a downside to Beer Circus. Well, there was a party going on but the manager, who Miyuki was talking to, had talked to Yoshino-san, the beer sales manager, earlier that day. Yoshino-san had told them that we might be coming and to get us a reserved table up on the second floor. I am so glad I hung out with him at the Grande Biere Festival!

At first it was just Nick, Miyuki, and I so we did what any group of beer lovers would do, passed over the food menu to order a pitcher of Kinshachi's Imperial Chocolate Stout. This stuff is a seasonal so it is nearing the end. You gotta get it while you can! Half an hour later, our friend Ryan and our enemy College Boy Chris (the dude getting the beer dumped on him in the hanami pic) show up so we order another pitcher of the Imp Choc Stout. Then Ryan's friend Oleg from Turkmenistan (did not know that was a real country) came and we drank Kinshachi's IPA and more Imperial Chocolate Stout.

When Oleg told me that he was from Turkmenistan I had deja vu of the time my boss at a summer camp told me he lived in Estonia. I was like, "Estonia? That's from Encino Man." Anyway, Estonia and Turkmenistan are real countries.

A little bit later someone orders a pitcher of the Alt. Kinshachi's Alt is good, but after drinking the 8% stout and 7% IPA, the 5% Alt tastes like a whole lotta nothing in your mouth. We then finished off the evening with the IPA, which doesn't blow your mind, but is good and begs to be drank in excess. I have talked about the Imperial Chocolate Stout before, so rather than an indepth, why this is badass rant, I'll just say that it is my favorite imperial chocolate stout in Japan.



About this time, who come in the door? Why, it's Yoshino-san and Yamaguchi-san, the brewer! They stopped by to see how we were doing and to confirm a private tour of Kinshachi's brewery, Land Beer, in Inuyama for April 3rd. We had earlier asked if we could tour the brewery, for the sake of the blog, and Yoshino-san had checked with the head honcho. "For the sake of the blog" is the best excuse in the world. I just want to tour the place and I write about it to justify my desires.

So in summary, Beer Circus has great beer that goes for 1950 yen a pitcher, pretty good food at decent prices (sorry I didn't talk about that), really nice people that make and sell the product, and a good location that is a two minute walk from Fushimi Station in Nags.

The last picture is me eating Beer Circus' Miso Fondue. What? It uses the same miso that they put in their Miso Lager (a pretty good beer) and you get a bunch of little fried things to dip in it. I am fond of fondue and miso goes good with beer.