I was going to post a review of DenBeer, but I realized that I forgot all of the pictures back in Toyohashi. You will have to wait for a entire review, but as a teaser I can say this: good beer, bad location.
I hope you are enjoying the interviews that we have been so lucky to be a part of. I especially enjoyed both Chris Poel's and Bryan Baird’s take on things and their approach at Baird Brewing. They both had great things to say, and I was really intrigued by what Bryan had to say about craft beer in Japan. The more I visit breweries, I have to agree with him that the reason craft beer isn’t more popular, is that there is just not a lot of good craft beer out there.
Japan has found itself in a recession much like back home. Jobs and money are harder to find than a full set of teeth at the Scott County fair. Last week, I happened to be walking home on aluminum collection day. Every bag full of cans that I passed was full to the brim with happoshu or worse. This weekend at DenBeer I noticed the price for one 330ml beer was 580 yen. That’s $6 for a beer that was good…but was it 330 yen better than a Yona-Yona? Was it 300 yen better than a 500ml Super Dry tall boy? Was it 460 yen better than a (gasp!!!!!) Asahi Clear? (Well, to the last one—Yes it definitely was.)
There is great beer in Japan. I am confident of that. I’ve had it. But, I must say that the more “jibeer” I drink, the more I am starting to see why it isn’t more popular. The German style beer houses disappoint. Most places the beer is good at best and the food struggles to be that. These places lack the character and atmosphere that make the German Beer gardens famous elsewhere in the world. Nate will tell you that I am usually pretty easy on the beer here. I like just about everything, and I can count on one hand the beers in this world that I have flat our just not liked. But, enough is enough.
Japanese brewers (and others brewing in Japan) are going to get more daring, and those that are already there (like Baird) are going to have to keep pushing the envelope. I’m tired to going to microbreweries and having to choose between a pilsner, a weizen and an alt. I’m ready to drink some deadly hoppy IPAs, some darker than night stouts, and some downright delicious beer. Japanese brewers must embrace the fact that micro brews have progressed past the old traditional styles. We craft beer drinkers expect to be wowed and amazed by beers that our fathers never dreamed possible.
It’s true, I enjoy a PBR or a Bud Heavy when I am back home on the creek, but when it’s time to drink good beer, dad gum it’s time.
We are heading to Tokyo in two weeks. We will be pouring beer and trying our best to spread the Country Boy lifestyle of good beer, good times, and more of both. I hope we can meet people that are passionate about making and drinking good beer.
6 comments:
You should have no trouble finding those guys.
Yeah, I agree, I think most of the beer out there is not very good at all, in fact, it's total schloss. Half of the stuff at the Beirre Grande, for example isn't quite up to the standards of the other half. Still, it's great to be able to try new beers and experiment for no extra cost. It seems every prefecture has it's own Mein Schloss. However, for myself, I'm not so bored with the old alt (or dunkel) pilsner weissen, if done right (Fujisakura is a great place to visit -love the weissen and rauch, as is Bayernmeister and Gotenba Kogen don't do too bad a job either {all three sitting arund Mt Fuji and easily doable in a day/2day trip, together with Baird - done it a few times myself}. You could also include Bearen, though they are now bringing out some chocolate stouts, Belgian biscuits, Belgian dubbels, etc, or Shonan who have made some fine German beers as their staples but also bring out great imperial and oatmeal stouts.). The last 2 make a few other beers but their German styles, though nothing ground breaking, are made well. But yes, unfortunately, you do get the old omiyage fake German beerhalls with beer that, well, tastes total schloss. Quite a few of those have come and gone. Let's hope the variety goes up, along with the quality.
Good luck with your hunting.
We can but hope, perhaps, for prices to come down, too.
Sheesh! A pig just flew past my window. That was weird.
"I agree, I think most of the beer out there is not very good at all, in fact, it's total schloss." - Quote of the month!!
I can say there are some good things in the works for beers in Japan and 2009/2010 will definetely see some changes, for the better i am very certain.
I heard today that Tama (not Tama No Megumi) went under as did one other brewery, which was so forgettable I have no idea of the name. I personally don't care if crappy breweries go bad. The bottom line is good breweries, in general, are not suffering and are selling there stuff all over Japan and people seek out their beers. The bad places sell their beer on premise to a bunch of suckers who happen to come by due to some tourist gimmick. Good riddance I say. Good places will get better. Bad places will go broke and mediocre places will either get better or die (Ozenoyukidoke at one time was very mediocre and boring. Chris and I and others can attest to how well their IPA is dry hopped. Out of this world last weekend at ushitora).
Tim
has gone! Dammit! So THAT'S why I couldn't find the place, whne I cycled past, the other day. Shame. Even if it wasn't the best in Japan, there are far worse around, still pupmping out their schloss for pooor unsuspecting folk to epend their hard earned booze money on. Shame.I wwanted to try the Tama rauch. At least give it a shot.
I heard at the Real Ale Festival that Tama no Megumi had gone under -- so it was Tama instead? Interesting. I've been there a few times, not great but had a good time.
Back to the state of the beer union -- all of this is true. Back in the mid-90s, when the first wave of craft breweries was taking place, there was a lot of crap, and many of them aren't around now. Things are getting better -- give it another five years (ten years?) and Japan's craft breweries will be kicking ass!
There will always be "schlock beer".
Everybody can brew it, from your macro national dominators, to your clutching for the last rung of the ladder entrepreneurs.
What matters is what they do when they get the opportunity to brew something other than a schlock beer.
I had contacts with breweries in the mid-1990s in the U.S.A. These breweries had at least one very good beer - which even won medals at the Great American Beer Festival®, but the beers which were keeping them alive were their schlock brews. When the market for their schlock beers dropped, that caused them to cease brewing the beers which were worthy of support. And as you might perceive, those breweries went under not much long afterward.
It takes gumption to brew a beer for sale which will perturb a portion of the beer-drinking audience. But it must be done. The mega-dreadnoughts can subsidize their forays into craft beer territory because they know that the profits from their pedestrian concoctions will let them.
Beer aficionados appreciate risk-taking as much as they appreciate the taste of hops & malt in their glass.
I have no qualms about slumming and consuming a macro brew sporadically. But I will only buy a slumming beer from a brewery which I know also brews quality beers, and needs sales in order to ensure that its excursions into quality beer continues.
So,
Tama is gone...oh well. I did like the one bottle of their Rauch that I had. I mean, I downed it with my wife's Alsacian choucroute (that's sausage and cabbage to country boys) and it went with it almost as well as the Schlenkerla Ur-Bock Rauch that I also had that night. Their other beers sucked, though, at least the other two that I had.
Hmmm... I don't want micro breweries to go under, I just want them to make their beers better. A good case in point is Minoh. Their beers were rather mediocre a couple years back, then, at least it seems to me, when their Double IPA started making some waves, and after getting some good attention, they went back and re-did almost all their lighter beers, which now are very good.
I think the major problem with micros in Japan is that there are too many who sell their beers simply as O-miyage, and whoever buys it doesn't drink it, and whoever does doesn't give a shit because it's from wherever their friend went and brought them back a souvenir. Seems to me about half of the brewers here are trying to get by on that scam.
IMHO
Mark
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