Headed to Tokyo for a month this weekend. I did a little research before posting and found that there are a couple of brew pubs in town that I can get to on the weekends and then this place is a little under a mile from my hotel:
no offense taken, but if I was in a Japanese steakhouse, I’d have a whisky with that kobe (if I could afford it… but then what the hell, I’d be on vacation). each to his own. I’d certainly explore the local sake shops as well. but before I went, I’d be checking here, for bottles to look for -
The problem is there are more sake and whiskey from Japan available to me in the US than I will ever drink, but I have exhausted the availability of Japanese craft beer.
Not saying I will only drink beer, but then I expect to be tripping over sake and whiskey, beer is reputedly a little less ubiquitous so that is also where I could use the most advice.
So to answer your question, if I had dry aged steak hanging around my house all the time but had never seen a chicken, probably yes.
Are they brewing again or are they still just making/bottling water? I thought I had read all the breweries were just making/bottling water since the tsunami but that may have been more ‘local’ than I thought, and might be over by now anyway. Only Japanese craft brew I’ve had is Hitachino Nest White and Red Rice Ale but those have been in the US for a while. Red Rice Ale is different/interesting imo.
there is a member of the NB and green boards named Chris Poel (just-cj aka cj-in-j) who brews for Baird Brewing in Numazu. Pretty far away from Tojkyo I take it, but I think he has some decent distribution - I’ve never had his beers nor made his recipes, but a lot of board members rave about them both.
I had thought of that but I figure their should be beer to drink, even if some of it was brewed a few months ago (they seem very fond of big smoked beers and barleywines). The news I can find on breweries is all from early March and the only craft breweries I can find mentioned are Baird which is apparently fine and Hitachino Nest which was damaged. Most of the big breweries were affected and the news stories seem to concentrate on them. While I’ll probably have one or two for the sake of comparison to what we get here, I’m not really after Sapporo and Kirin, obviously.
There are lots of solid beers available in Tokyo (& Yokohama).
I link to some beerworthy English-language World-Wide Web sites on my regular bookmark page.
But I’ll break out these two:
Boozelist (Chris Chuwy tries to annotate what beers are on tap at scores of beer bars in Tokyo [including the Tama region] and Yokohama.)
Japanese Craftbeer events (“Beerkat” [Rei-chan] denotes upcoming beer events, at beer bars, and detached venues.)
Baird has two brewpubs in Tokyo: In Naka-Meguro and in Harajuku; and a third brewpub in central Yokohama.
If you want more venue suggestions, please request them here. 8)
I got to Popeye last night (second night in town). Pretty awesome. Had four 30 cL beers. The Yo-Ho TokyoBlack Porter (hand pump) and Divine Vamp III India Black Ale were both awesome. I only saw one other American there. He said not many Americans go (surprising, it has a very “American beer bar” feel). I thought the prices were quite high compared to Manhattan/Chicago/San Francisco/London but the American guy said they were one of the cheapest places in town.
I noticed one of the places in your first link has Maui Coconut Porter for 1,300 Yen a glass. Probably quite a novelty for people who don’t get to the US, but I’ll pass (not just on the price, I have no intention of drinking non-Japanese or at least non-Asian beer here).
I’d heard that craft beer was few and far between in Japan. From what I have seen that definitely does not apply to Tokyo. An American client (who lives in Tokyo) said there are tons of places around the office so I will probably have a beer or two with the clients a few nights.
Now I just have to map all of those places based on my understanding of the geography, which is entirely based on the Metro map.
I did venture out last night and have some whiskey (and a Manhattan, which was like $15 for what in the US is a glass of historic novelty size and too sweet).
Didn’t know what to get and the waiter’s English was, while much better than my Japanese, not great so I guessed and went with this:
It was the most distinctly malty Whiskey I have ever head. Very fruity. It was a little much for me so I added a little water. Everyone else in the bar drinking Whiskey had it on the rocks. I am wondering if that is extremely common in Japan and they make the whiskey a bit more intense to stand up to the dilution. Definitely interesting. I’d much rather have another of that Divine Vamp III though.
No Sake yet (well I had what I am sure was a modest priced example on the plane).
I’m sick and it is raining out so I’m holed up in my room. I cracked open the mini-fridge for an Asahi Premium. It actually had an interesting floral hop nose. I’ll get back on the town tomorrow night.
Thanks for your blog. It’s enjoyable reading live updates. How have the events of 3/11 affected life in Tokyo? Is there much concern about radiation there?
Being sick while away from home is a drag. Hope you feel better soon.
No concern about radiation. I think the levels in Tokyo are lower than they are in Denver, for example. The biggest thing is everyone is trying to save power. The hotel restaurants close earlier than normal, at the office they leave the lights off in the hall, stuff like that.
I found a good english language blog about Japan that had a post on getting cold medicine, so I think I can get some today. I seem to be getting better. At least I am here for four weeks, if I went back this weekend it would have been a crappy trip between being sick and jet-lagged.
The big adventure this afternoon is going to the Tsujiki fish market for sushi. I may lay off the beer tonight as it is probably not helping my recovery.
ETA: I guess the potentially worst part about the power savings is the office building is setting the heat at 20C (68) and the A/C at 28 C (82.4). The weather has been mild so far though. It is a little hotter in the office than I would like but I am wearing suits and not really used to that. Japanese people like it warmer so the 20C is worse to them than the 28C. I’d love 20C personally, especially in a suit. Also the hand dryer in the restroom isn’t running and they don’t have paper towels. So you just carry a washcloth or whatever with you to dry your hands. That seems like an odd place to go after power savings (the hand dryer), but I can deal with it.
Most vending machines are just water/tea/coffee drinks. I do find it interesting that a lot of the soft drinks are made by the big brewery and distilling companies (Kirin, Suntory, etc). I am pretty sure if AB-Inbev tried to sell soft drinks in the US someone would claim they were trying to lock kids into their brand or something.
I have seen beer and pornography in vending machines. No panties yet (that is the thing that sticks out in my mind as a weird vending machine item I had heard about in the past). One cool thing is that the vending machines in the train stations let you pay with your train card.
I did see a woman with a ferret in her purse last night…
So I went back to Popeyes. I was just there for a bit the other night and sat by an American. Last night there were zero Americans or Europeans other than me. I lucked out and sat by a guy that speaks pretty good English. I am pretty impressed by the beer geek culture in Japan. Lots of young women were drinking stuff like Rogue Yellow Snow IPA (I saw more women drink IPA last night than I do in a typical month at home, not counting my wife). People mostly do not order the same beer twice. The craft beers are generally very good. I don’t think I have had a bad one yet and I have had several great ones. They definitely like hops and a lot of their beers are in the West Coast (US) style.
There is an English beer bar and a few Belgian beer bars that I might try but given how close it is and that it is the consensus best place in Japan I will go to Popeyes a lot. It also helps that the food is cheap. Before 8:00 PM you can get a free half plate of one of eight items if you buy a beer that has a crown by it on the menu (about a quarter of the menu, so 18 beers or so). Food is generally very expensive in Tokyo and I am on per diem so getting by cheap at Popeye’s one night allows me to go for something higher end the next.
I talked to a few people who have been travelling on business to the US for decades and recall beer in the US being crap other than Anchor, Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada. I got a kick out of the idea of Japanese business men looking for a bar that had Anchor Steam in 1980. They said there used to be tons of breweries in Japan before WWII and then it was all Sapporo/Kirin/Asahi/Suntory until about 10 years ago. So very similar patter to what happened in the US with prohibition.
My favorite beer so far is a 2007 Hurricane Barley Wine that Popeyes had on draught. It was Madeira like, lots of dark fruit, huge silky body. Some of the online reviews mention hot/solvent but I thought the alcohol was well hidden for 15%. It was definitely warming but not solventy or harsh. Maybe the 4 years did it some good.
My second favorite is the Baird Divine Vamp III India Black Ale which I have had on both visits. I think I like it better than any “black IPA” I have had in the States. They have been making this for years (at least since 2006) so I guess we have to start calling black IPA Japanese Dark Ale. The Cascadians will be so disappointed.
That is the custom here on the windward side of Hawaii Island too. During pau hana (happy hour) many bars serve free puu puus with their pau hana beer specials. Not chips, popcorn, and peanuts, but small portions of their menu items. Very nice! Unfortunately the beer specials are always BudMillerCoors Light. Steinlager is pretty popular here too. Yum…
