地ビール祭京都 / Kyoto Craft Beer Festival 2012

The third annual Craft Beer Festa Kyoto was held on a beautiful sunny Sunday in mid-March. The location was the same as last year, the Sanjo Association Shopping Arcade, but attendance (one estimate was 5,000) seemed to be way up over last year's event.

This year this beer booths were spread out along a stretch of the shopping arcade, instead of being mostly concentrated in the small park at the center. That park area was reserved for the four Kyoto-based breweries, food stalls, and a small music stage. And, instead of being shuttered up for the day, many arcade shops joined in the fun, selling a wide range of food.

The event map/guide listed 28 breweries, but I counted only 24. No matter. There were more than last year, and better ones, too. Two new breweries in Japan also showed up: Brimmer Brewing and Outsider Brewing. The guide also contained short informative bilingual description of the beers available.

In spite of the crowds, it was a very pleasant event. Only problem was a shortage of places to pee. There was one small toilet in the park, at times with fairly long lines. Eventually, some desperate folks discovered a restroom on the second floor of a supermarket in the arcade, and soon thereafter a steady stream of imbibers were making their way up and down the stairs. First time I'd seen people carrying glasses of beer in a supermarket.....

Some standout brews of the day:

Outsider Brewing Innkeeper Bitter Lager

Strong grassy nose, with some hoppiness. Clear as a bell. Great initial bite of flavor, lingers a bit with a fairly distinctive Pils character. Nicely done by one of Japan’s newest brewing outfits.

Baird Suruga Bay Imperial IPA

Astounding citrusy, grapefruit aromas. A dusky orange beauty. Malty, thick, with a long piney aftertaste. Such a pleasure to drink.

Daisen G Beer White Nelson Sauvin

Stinky, barn floor aromas, wheaty notes as well. Packs a lemony and grapefruit punch, with a sharply bitter aftertaste. The wheat and Nelson Sauvin hops complement each other well.

Fujizakura Kougen Rauch Beer

Aroma is purely smoke, with a touch of sweet malt. Flavors are smoke and more smoke with some solid malt underneath. A real treat. It just won a gold medal in the smoke beer category at the World Beer Cup 2012.

Harvestmoon Schwarz

Near pitch black with a strong chocolate roast malt aroma. Rather heavy flavors for a schwarz. (maybe more like a porter). A pretty well-made black beer.

Shiga Kogen Indian Summer Saison

Sharp, stinky barnyard nose with a load of great hopping. Sweet and sour with a big mid-palate explosion of yeast and hops at the back of the throat. Very light body for all this flavor. I’ve never had a bad beer from this brewery. 

Many thanks to Chris H. and his helpful, yellow-shirted staff of volunteers. They made it all work.

Japanese Breweries at the 2012 World Beer Cup

The 9^th bi-annual World Beer Cup ended last Saturday (May 5) in San Diego. It was the largest competition ever held, with a total of 3,921 beers entered by 799 breweries from 54 nations and 45 U.S. states. The judges awarded 284 prizes in 95 categories. Whew! A lot of numbers and a lotta beers.

The largest category, and the one with the largest growth over last year, was American-Style India Pale Ale (with 150 entries), followed by Imperial India Pale Ale (with 93). The smallest was German-Style Sour Ale with only 11 beers entered.

Twenty-one Japanese brewers participated, bringing a total of 96 beers to the competition. They were the following: AJI (Minoh), Aqula, Asahi, Baird, Chateau Kamiya, Coedo, Fujizakura Kogen, Ise Kadoya, Kinshachi, Kiuchi, Konishi, Kumazawa, Moku-Moku, Nanto, Rokko, Sankt Gallen, Swan Lake, Tamamura Honten (Shiga Kogen), Warabiza, Yo-Ho, and Yokohama.

And how did they fare? Four breweries were awarded medals:

Gold: Minoh Beer Yuzu White Ale (Fruit Wheat Beer)

Gold: Fujizakura Kogen Beer Rauch (Smoke Beer)

Silver: Swan Lake Beer Amber Swan Ale (American-Style Amber/Red Ale)

Bronze: Kumazawa Chocolate Porter (Robust Porter)

Over the years, Hitachino Nest has been a standout brewer in this competition, with six medals, as has Nasu Kohgen, with a total of five. Swan Lake Beer’s Amber Swan Ale has won three times, and their Porter has picked up four medals. Fujizakura’s sublime Rauch and Rauch Bock have been awarded bronze and silver medals in the past, and this year the Rauch took the gold medal in the Smoke Beer category. Yet perhaps no brewery has done better than Baird Brewing did in 2010, with three gold medals in three diverse categories. 

Congratulations to all the brewers. Look for those award-winning brews at your favorite craft beer bar.

ポートランドのビール -- 日本語醸造所ツア

Here's great news for Japanese who love craft beer. The writer of オ州酒ブログ  is working with the folks at Brewvana Portland Brewery Tours to provide Japanese-language tours. The tours will start this summer. A great chance for people to discover the wonderful brewing scene in Portland, Oregon. Have a look at the site HERE. And be sure to tell your beer-geek tomodachi tachi.

Sampling Session - March 30, 2112

At the end of March, five of us met at Lefty's on a pleasant afternoon for a sampling session that focused on stouts and porters.

The two best of the day: Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter (2007) and Bell’s Black Note Stout. Kind of a battle between solid tradition and brash, multifaceted youth.

Närke Kaggen has an amazingly complex aroma: thick hunks of chewing tobacco, deep veins of chocolate, cherries, and dark ripe fruits. A great unabashedly Old World stout. Unrestrained but classic. Black Note (a blend of Bell's Expedition and Double Cream stouts) had a huge bourbon and vanilla nose, and rich sweet flavors of raisins, vanilla, as well as strange burnt rubber notes. Too much seems to be happening at once, but then it blends into a perfect subtle aftertaste.

The barrel-aged Rasputin gave off aromas of mild sweet chocolate, with some yeast and vanilla notes. It was very strong, with big sweet malt flavors. The bourbon notes really began emerging in mid palate.The bourbon, chocolate, and vanilla flavors are well integrated -- but it's maybe just a touch too sweet.

Founders Porter was pitch black, smoky, and full of chocolates scents. Coffee and chocolate flavors blended in a very well-balanced medium body but somewhat sticky.

Marshal Zhukov’s Imperial Stout had a thick coffee aroma, with a hint of chlorine. Darker than the Dark Force, with a high elegant lacing around a thick dark head. Burned hardwood flavors with very syrupy chocolate. An almost shockingly thick viscous body which rolls around in the glass like motor oil. A bit over the top, but still great stuff. 

Three Floyds Black Sun Stout exuded a piney hop aroma with some dark chocolate (like a black IPA). Pitch black with a creamy dark head. Flavors of chocolate, wood, some citrus, and a bitter aftertaste. 

Goose Island Bramble Rye Bourbon County Stout had a huge dark fruit aroma, with wine and berries. Fruit flavors start blooming in mid palate and ripen in final. Also a touch of candy and cough drops. Smooth and just a bit fizzy.

Average Ratings -- 50-point scale -- (five raters)

45.5     Bell’s Black Note Stout  10.5%

45.5     Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter (2007) 9%

41        Three Floyds Zombie Dust (American Pale Ale)  6.2%

40.5     North Coast Old Rasputin Anniversary Bourbon Barrel Aged 
           Stout XIV 11.5%

40.25   Founders Porter  6.5%

40        Weihenstephaner Korbinian (Doppelbock) 7.4%

39.5     Cigar City Marshal Zhukov’s Imperial Stout  (2011)  11%

38.5     Three Floyds Black Sun Stout (dry stout)  5.25%

38.25   Goose Island Bramble Rye Bourbon County Stout  12.8%

37.5     Southern Tier Imperial Oat  11%

36.25   Mikkeller Texas Ranger (Spice/Herb/Vegetable)  6.6%

34        Bell’s Porter  5.6%

33.75   Russian River Redemption (Belgian Ale) 5.15%

32.75   Extraomnes Donker Imperial Coffee Stout  8.5%

32.25   Dick's Imperial Stout  7.5%

31.75   Nøgne Ø Tiger Tripel (Abbey Tripel)  9%

27.27   XO Beer Cognac (Bière de Garde)  5.9%

Seattle: Brouwer's Cafe

 I had a free day in Seattle, due to a flight cancellation. After an early flight from Portland and a nap at the airport hotel, I headed out to Brouwer's Cafe, one of the more highly-touted beer spots in town.

It's a large open two-story place. Maybe 20 bar stools, 10 tables, and 4 large booths. Another 10 tables visible upstairs through an oval-shaped opening in the ceiling.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed. The tap selection wasn’t as extensive as I’d been led to believe. Well, yes, they did have a ton of barleywines -- 31 in fact, which were the remnants of 60 they had for the recent Hard Liver BW Festival, most priced at $5 for 6oz. and $7 for 12oz. Who should complain, right?
I ordered glasses of two:  Lagunitas Olde GnarlyWine '07, which was superb, and Stone Old Guardian '07, which wasn't.

However, the rest of the tap list consisted of beers you might see in many bars -- eight Belgians, two from California, and one each from Colorado, New York, Missouri, Ireland, Germany, and England). The exception, and a decided highlight, was Pliny the Elder on tap and in bottles. The bottled beer selection, on the other hand, looked impressive. They also had 59 single malts and 28 other types of whiskey, as well as 13 wines.

One big negative point is that they don’t have sampler sets. Another was that the service was fairly slow. The staff (four people) seemed to be very busy and not terribly friendly, rushing around at their tasks, even though the place wasn’t all that crowded. It took a bit of time to place an order. The food menu looked much better than regular pub grub, though I didn’t order anything. I've heard that the fries, the mussels, and their other Belgian dishes are especially good

Be sure to have a look at the reproduction on the back wall ("The Bitter Draught" by Adriaen Brouwer). Then get back to your beer.

Portland II: Bailey's Taproom

After visiting Hair of the Dog and Cascade Brewing, and recovering from that, the next evening I went to meet fellow blogger, Red, at Bailey's Taproom. Red publishes the always-interesting and punningly-titled blog, オ州酒ブログ ("O-shuu-shu Blog"), in which he writes about a wide variety of  Oregon beer, wine, and spirits-related topics. Later on, my nephew, who works in Portland, joined us there.

Bailey's is a great bar in a great beer town. 22 taps (all good and often rotating), many of them featuring Oregon beers, and some of them nano-breweries you probably haven't heard of before. Also a serious selection of bottled beer.There’s always something new on tap, even for the most experienced and far-ranging craft beer fans. There is minimal attention to decor, but that’s okay --it’s basic and comfortable. There is no wait service; you go to the bar and order what you want from the friendly and very knowledgeable staff. Decent prices, too. $7.50 for five samplers. There is also a cool electronic beer menu board above the bar. A must if you are in downtown Portland.

Tap Menu Board above the bar

Click on the link below to see Red's blog post (in Japanese) on Bailey's Taproom, which he calls downtown Portland's best beer bar: ダウンタウン・ポートランドのベスト・ビール・バー

Finally, here's a useful resource for Portland beer-hunters: the Beervana blog's "Best Pub Crawls." There are four on the blog site, each describing the major pubs to visit, along with some optional bars, stores, and restaurants along the route. 

Portland: HOTD & Cascade Brewing

I have family members in Oregon and I get out there two or three times a year. I always try to spend a few days in Portland, exploring familiar beer places and trying out new ones. Last month I had a couple of days in Beervana and, on one wonderful afternoon-evening, went to the Hair of the Dog Tasting Room and Cascade Brewing Barrel House. The next evening was spent mostly at Bailey's Taproom. Finally, the day before I was to return to Japan, I had an e-mail from the airline company, saying that my Seattle-Osaka flight had been cancelled, giving me a free day to explore a few spots in Seattle).

 

The Hair of the Dog Tasting Room is always a treat. It has a large, airy, semi-industrial yet pleasant decor, with very friendly staff and a comfortable atmosphere. Seven HOTD brews were on tap. They were offering a sampler of four (Greg, Blue Dot, Fred, and Adam) for $7. Bottle of earlier vintages were available for consumption on premises only (e.g., first vintage of Adam (’94) for $75). This place is a must for beer lovers in Portland. Some of the very best beers in town made by one of the finest brewers around. 

Last time I was in Portland, the Cascade Brewing Barrel House was a couple of weeks away from opening, so this time I made sure to visit. It's just a ten-minute walk from HOTD. This is the place for aged sour beers; they had many types to try -- some aged 12. 16, or 24+ months.

 The bar area is spacious, and there is a large patio full of tables out front right on the street. They had 22 taps going. Bottle sales, too -- and they also sell bottle-shaped bubble wrap packs for those who are traveling. I had samplers of the Blueberry Bourbonic. L'agent Orange, Sang Noir, and Pater, all great. The first two of these were one-time-only single casks, 55 gallons fruit- infused and aged. I also picked up a bomber of Sang Royal to take back to Japan.