Shiga Kogen Brewery - Yama Bushi, Champagne looking bottle.

 
Name:Yama Bushi.

Brewery: Shiga Kogen Brewery.

Style: Inspired by Belgian White.

Purchased at: Aeon Supermarket.

Price: ¥1100

Taste: 9.5/10

Alcohol Level: 6%

Music: I absolutely can't get enough of Demon Bitch - Hellfriends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n03AEI2NiKM

Snack: Got some Dill Pickle flavoured chips from a Seiyu. Jeez they were good. Didn't get a chance to take a picture because I ate them all in the car on the drive home.

Website: http://www.tamamura-honten.co.jp/

Experience:

Last Friday I decided to celebrate being alive with this incredibly fancy looking beer from the Shiga Kogen Brewery. I haven't reviewed any of their beers yet because I am saving them, since they are so readily available here, but I should really just get around to doing it.

As you can see this beer came in a champagne bottle. The cap was hard to get off, for some reason my bottle opener kept slipping. Once I finally got the damn thing opened, boy was the beer delicious. I think it's a Belgian White beer. The back label says it is inspired by Belgian beer. This beer really reminded me of the taste of some beers I had at the Snow Monkey Beer Festival. Since this is one of the breweries that helped run the event, maybe I tried it already without realising it. It was light, fizzy and fruity, almost like a soft drink. Completely delicious and refreshing.

The beer's name is Yama Bushi. I looked this up in a dictionary and it said it meant ''Mountain Priest''. Not 100% sure that is correct. Google translate also said ''hare'' and ''slut'' at one point so who the heck knows. There is a picture of a goblin on the label, so I reckon it has something to do with that. It might be a local sort of name or something. It also says on the label that it was made from home grown rice and hops. I got the impression that this brewery was a lot bigger than it actually appears to be, perhaps they just have good distribution around Nagano. Now that I think about it I haven't really seen any of their beers outside of Nagano.

The next day I decided it was time to check out the brewery itself, the Shiga Kogen Brewery that is. To my disapointment, it turned out to be pretty small and I don't think they offered tours. This brewery spawned out of a much older sake brewery that has been around for a few hundred years. Sake seems to be waning in popularity amongst younger people (can't blame them as most of it tastes like nail polish remover AND it's only about 17% ABV so you can't even argue it's worth skulling just to get the job done) it seems like they decided to add beer to their portfolio. They literally make about 12 different types of beer and I cannot begin to imagine how they manage to brew it all in their small brewery. I'll do some more investigating in the near future.

If you are in the area during winter, apparently they have a tap room bar. It shut for the season like last week so I didn't manage to go there. But many bars in town have this beer on tap. Look for the distinctive dragon logo! And all their beers come in bottles, which is somewhat unusual in Japan. I'll have more reviews from this brewery in the near future. 

OH LA HO! Brewery - Amber Ale, Can.

Name: Amber Ale

Brewery: Oh La Ho! Brewing

Style: Amber Ale

Purchased at: Nagano train station.

Price: ¥350

Taste: 10/10

Alcohol Level: 5%

Music: I was still listening to Aura Noir from the previous review, but at the time of actually writing this I am listening to Summoning’s album, Oathbound.

Summoning – Oathbound.

Snack: Chicken sandwich with japapenos

Website: http://www.tomi-kosya.com/ohlaho-beer/ohlaho-beer.html

I drank this beer just after the Thrash Lager in the previous review. When I poured this beer into the glass, jeez I was admiring the colour. A beautiful, deep brown with slightly brown foam on the top. This is my absolute favourite colour for beer, love it when the foam is dark like that. I think it’s because one time a friend of a friend came around to our house with some beer he had made himself. I was like, WTF you can make your own beer??

The taste man. Just perfect. It’s got that slightly sweet and caramel flavour you’d expect from a beer of this colour, but not over the top so you feel sick by the end of it.

I’m gonna go ahead and say this is my favourite beer from Nagano that I’ve tried so far. The Yona Yona pale ale has been dethroned and a new power has risen. Hail, amber ale, king of the bar.

This is the type of beer I imagine them drinking in Lord of the Rings. In fact I am reading lord of the rings at the moment. I just finished the chapter where Aragon and company arrive at Isengard to find Merry and Pippin eating and drinking to their hearts content. When they sit down to lunch they are offered beer from a barrel. OH LA HO’s Amber Ale is what I imagine they drank. Oh and from the movie where he says, It comes in pints?? This is the beer I imagine. I thick, strong foam, hearty, warming flavour with naturally brewed flavours.

Maybe this beer simply came to me at the right time, but I really enjoyed it. I’m writing this review during down time at work now, but you had better bloody believe I’m going to pick up a few cans of it on the way home tonight, go ahead and put money on that. I reckon I’ll drink one or two while in the bath tonight. Sounds great to me.

Yo Ho Brewing - Karuizawa Kogen Beer Belgian White

Name: Karuizawa Kogen Belgian White

Brewery: Yo Ho Brewing


Style: Belgian White

Purchased at: A restaurant in Karuizawa

Price: ¥500 (Restaurant price)

Taste: 9/10

Alcohol Level: 5%

Music: Summoning - Stronghold
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuoR8wEW0Bo

Snack: Roasted Chicken at the restaurant.

Website: http://karuizawa-kogen-beer.com/

Experience.
I'm a little confused about who brewed this beer exactly. I thought that Karuizawa Kogen Beer was its own company and brewery, but on the website it says it is owned by Yo Ho brewing who are also based in Karuizawa and gave us the undeniable masterpiece known as the Yona Yona. I'm just going to assume this is a company owned by Yo Ho until I can find out what is really going on. Looking on their websites it appears as if there are two separate companies, but then I see the Yona Yona label in different pictures. And the bio mentions Yo Ho brewing. Enigmatic and confusing! You don't need to be a genius to drink and enjoy their beers though, so here we go.

Karuizawa is a town in Nagano, Japan. It is fancy as heck, lots of rich people shops and skiing and all that. It has two big breweries that are brewing great beer. Yo Ho brewing and the Karuizawa Brewing Company. Both of these breweries are based in a city called Saku though, which is maybe half an hour away from Karuizawa. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but Karuizawa is a place where rich people from Tokyo have their summer or winter homes. Maybe they don't have the room for big breweries. I'm sure some marketing magic was involved because, no offence intended to Saku, but Karuizawa I imagine would be a lot easier to sell as a luxurious place where beer flows freely or whatever.

Anyway, I've reviewed two of the beers from this company before, but they were their all year beers. This is the first seasonal one of theirs but as I said you shouldnt have too much trouble finding it. I'm not even sure what season this beer is meant to be available, it doesn't really matter, what matters is the taste.

And boy, the taste is unreal. This beer is sweet and fruity. I swear I could taste oranges or something. I can see it becoming a bit sickly if you had too much of it, but one or two and you are in heaven. Looks so nice in the glass too.

These beers can easily be found in Karuizawa, Nagano. Just about anywhere that sells craft beers will sell this beer. Maybe it will be out of season when you look for it, but don't worry because it will be coming back.

Echigo Beer - Flying Pale Ale

Name: Echigo Flying IPA

Brewery: Echigo Beer

Style: IPA

Purchased at: Nagano Station

Price: ¥300

Taste: 9/10

Alcohol Level: 5%

Music: Evilfeast – Lost Horizons of Wisdom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6M1PFLo7S0

Snack: Making fajitas.

Website: http://www.echigo-beer.jp/

Experience.

It has been a while since I’ve written a review. But don’t worry, Ive continued drinking beer. Im planning on doing video reviews when I can be sure no one will walk in on me talking to the camera, that would be embarrassing.

Ive had many beers from this brewery, Echigo Beer. On the can they claim to be Japan’s first micro brewery. If that’s true then I am glad they are still around. All their beers are great and they seem to be a pretty cool company. According to their facebook page they are always attending and hosting events. I’d love to visit the brewery but I haven’t had the chance yet.

This beer is one of their newer ones. At the time of writing this, they are currently releasing one with a tiger on the can. This one, the Flying IPA, has a dragon on it. Have to say, I love the can design. The dragon is holding a beer. Haha. The can alone makes it a worthwhile purchase.

As far as taste goes, while it claims to be an IPA, I think it tastes closer to a pale ale. For me this is a good thing. I cant stand the super strong American IPAs, I think some of them taste like fresh cut grass. This however was much more mild, however still extremely refreshing.

This beer can be a little hard to find. You aren’t going to see it at supermarkets very often. I have seen other beers by this company at Seiyu, so maybe try your luck there. Apart from that, any food shop that sells foreign snacks and spices, seems to have them. There is such a shop in Nagano station.

EDIT: I had this beer again last night. I don't know what happened with the first one, but this one had a much stronger IPA taste. I usually don't like IPAs that much, but this one went down easy. Very smooth. I guess they are a smaller brewery, so the beer probably changes in flavour with each batch.

Fujizakura Brewery - Weizen 330ml bottle

Name: Fujizakura Heights Weizen

Brewery: Fujizakura beer.

Style: Weizen

Purchased at: Snow Monkey Beer Live bottle shop.

Price: ¥500

Taste: 8.5/10

Alcohol Level: 5%

Music: Still listening to Eternal Champion a lot. Also listening to Visigoth a bit, going through a real heavy metal throw back phase at the moment. I can't stand power metal right now though for some reason, so it's difficult to find modern heavy metal bands that don't drift into power metal territory and at the same time don't suck.

Snack: I had a hot dog with curry sauce on it, it was really good, perfect with beer.

Website: http://www.fujizakura-beer.jp/

Experience.

It's finally a great time to be alive again here. The snow has pissed off for a few months and it's

getting warmer everyday, bloody great.

When the sakura trees are in bloom everyone has picnics in the parks under the trees. Everyone uses the same blue tarp and most people are drinking beers and having fun. It's like everyone can finally come out of their winter hovels and celebrate being able to go outside again.

On this particular outing I took two beers with me, both of which were purchased at the snow monkey beer live festival. The first was this weizen which comes from somewhere near Mt. Fuji. This beer was very fruity and full tasting. Very delicious and it suited being outside in the sun with flowers very much.

The design on the bottle was also cool. It was pink which matched the flowers and I think the cap even had a sakura leaf on it. I just grabbed any beers from the fridge as we left, so this one must have jumped to the front to be a part of the spring festivities. Upon looking at the bottle again, I realised the brewery actually has "sakura" in it's name, so yeah it was definitely the right choice to take to a hanami.

I've never seen this beer for sale anywhere before, but perhaps if you are travelling in the Mt. Fuji area you will find it. I plan on climbing Mt. Fuji, so I'll definitely be picking up a few of these when I'm in the area.

Looking on their website, it looks like the have a restaurant in Kawaguchiko near Mt. Fuji, which is one of my favourite towns in Japan. I cannot recommend going to this town enough, it's really beautiful and you get an unreal view of Mt. Fuji.

Matsumoto Brewery - Pale Ale 330ml bottle

Name: Traditional Bitter

Brewery: Matsumoto Brewery

Style: Pale Ale

Purchased at: Matsumoto Brewery Tap Room

Price: ¥500

Taste: 8/10

Alcohol Level: 5%

Music: Akhlys - The Dreaming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_SK1Gn63f0

Ferocious and dark black metal.

Snack: I was cooking spaghetti

Website: http://matsu-brew.com/

Experience.

I forget why but I wanted to make spaghetti bolognese from scratch, if you count using canned tomatoes as from scratch. I think I'd been eating a lot of crap at the time, so I wanted something that wasn't dripping in oil or too process. I could have eaten some plain vegetables, but

Anyway this is another one of the beers from Matsumoto Brewery. This is a great Pale Ale. It doesn't have that intense hop flavour of some pale ales. Very refreshing and slightly citrusy I guess. The best thing about Matsumoto brewery beers is how fresh they are. They make them all right there.

I hate it when you find out a craft beer company is actually just a small division of a huge beer company. Mainly because of how stupid they think people are. Kirin and Asahi make "craft" beer here in Japan, but they dont try and hide it at least. Their names are all over the label. Australian beer companies dont do that though, they try to make it seem authentic. Craft beer companies should start in someones garage or by a group of people who want to go out on their own and make something cool, not a board room by a company cashing in on a growing trend and trying to increase their already massive profits. I probably have no idea what I'm talking about here by the way.

I still like the Matsumoto bitter beer the best of what I've tried from them, but this is definitely a delicious Pale Ale that I would love to have again.

By the way, you can see the Snow Monkey Beer Live glass in action here. Only problem with it is the glass is really thin. My premium malts glass broke last night, which I was pretty sad about. If the snow monkey beer glass breaks ill be really sad.

Beer Venue: Oriental Brewing in Kanazawa

Name: Oriental Brewing in Kanazawa

Brewery: Various

Style: Various

Purchased at: Ticket purchased online, there is help for English speakers.

Price: ¥700

Taste: 10/10

Alcohol Level: Various

Music: Been listening to Eternal Champion a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODNqxcRQGH4

Snack: I'd just eaten a lot of sushi, so I couldn't eat any of the great looking pizzas they had there unfortunately.

Website: http://www.orientalbrewing.com/

Experience:


Over the spring holidays my special lady and I took a trip to a city called Kanazawa. It's a beautiful little city on the Japan sea in the Toyama prefecture. People like to describe it as a smaller Kyoto, but I think they should just focus on being themselves, they have enough to offer.

While there I discovered a local micro brewery called Oriental Brewing. It was a really nice little bar that had two house brewed beers on tap and about 6 other craft beers from different parts of Japan, including the 11% beer I tried at snow monkey beer live.

The bar itself actually has a small brewery attached, which is really rare to see in Japan. I wanted to take a picture but there was a guy in there so I didn't, in hindsight I should have just taken it.



The house brewed beers were delicious. There was a Weizen and a Yuzu beer, Yuzu being a Japanese lemon. I don't even know if they bottle these beers, so you'll have to go there to try them.











They also make some great looking food. We had just been to a really nice sushi place, so I was full as. I really wanted to order a pizza, but we were going to a geisha performance that night and didn't want to feel like compelte shit. The lady working at the bar actually rolled out the dough, put on the toppings and cooked the pizza right behind the bar in an oven. This again is a really rare thing to see in Japan. It's great to see people doing cool things like this.

Oriental Brewing is right near Kenrokuen Garden. If you go to Kanazawa you will almost certainly visit this garden, so this is a great place to go while you are in the area. Also, they host English speaking geisha evenings nearby which is 100% definitely worth checking out as well. They are real geishas and you can play a drinking game with them.

If you are in Kanazawa definitely go here, and don't eat anything beforehand, save your appetite for all the beers and pizza.

You can find pictures of all the stuff I missed on their website. Looks like they really have their shit together, sick dudes.

Beer Event: Snow Monkey Beer Live.

Name: Snow Monkey Beer Live

Brewery: Various

Style: Various

Purchased at: Ticket purchased online, there is help for English speakers.

Price: ¥4500 per ticket

Taste: 10/10

Alcohol Level: Various, one of the beers with 10% but didnt taste like it.

Music: Toe and Jizue

Snack: I ate super spicy fried chicken, quesadillas and a sausage that made my breath reek but tasted unreal.

Website: http://snowmonkey.jp/

Experience:

On the 18th and 19th of March there was a music festival in Shiga Kogen, Nagano. Shiga Kogen is a big mountain range that would be well known to anyone that comes to Japan to ski. Also a beautiful place to explore and wander in summer. 

The festival was called Snow Monkey Beer Live. A bunch of really cool Japanese bands were playing. As well as that, a heap of craft breweries come and set up small bars in the concert hall. You get a special beer glass and a bunch of beer tickets, and then you can try a whole lot of beers from all over Japan. There was awesome food too.

Of the bands playing, I was particularly excited to see Jizue and Toe. I couldn’t believe these bands were playing so close to my house.

There was still a lot of snow once we started getting into the mountains. I was surprised because down in town theres not a flake left.

I tried a lot of different beers but decided I wasn’t going to review them all. Instead I bought a bunch from the bottle shop they have set up. It was unreal walking into the room and seeing all the different cool beers from all over Japan. I only bought 6, but I wanted them all.

                            This is the glass you get, it's my main glass now.

On the day my favourite beer was one that was infused with a smokey flavour somehow. I can’t remember which company made it, but the point is there was a lot of cool beers to try.

Even if you aren’t a fan of the bands playing, it’s still definitely worth going. The range of beer was terrific, it’s cool to see so many people making cool beers in Japan.

If bands like Toe and Jizue are playing, I can’t wait to see who is on next years bill. There were three shows all up. One on Saturday night then two on Sunday, a midday one and an evening one. For each ticket you buy you’ll get 5 beer tickets. 

About the shuttle bus. Apparently there is a shuttlebus that runs from Yudanaka station up to the event. Its kinda hard to find information about it on the website, but when we got to the festival a guy gave us the schedule. Maybe if you click around enough on the website you can find it. There are also other local busses running but they stop before the festival finishes.

Hitachino Nest Beer - White Ale 330ml bottle

Name: Hitachino Nest Beer

Brewery: Kiuchi Brewery

Style: White Ale

Purchased at: A shop called Aming, it sells fancy things.

Price: ¥300

Taste: 9/10

Alcohol Level: 5.5%

Music: The Cure - Greatest Hits.

Snack: I think I made quesadillas that night, but I can't remember.

Website: http://www.kodawari.cc/?en_home/products/hitachino-nest-beer.html

Experience:

I was cooking tea and listening to music, so I decided to have a few beers, everyone in town was shocked because I have never done this before.

I was looking forward to this beer because the label is cool and I like White Ales a lot. I was not at all dissapointed! This beer was really refreshing and delicious. The label says it was made with orange peel, which I felt like I could taste, but maybe I just thought that because the label said so.

This beer might be my favourite now, I will try a few along side the Yona Yona pale ale to see which I prefer. If nothing else I think that this company is becoming my favourite beer company in Japan.

This company seems really switched on. It looks like they are getting distributed around the world now. And you can brew your own beer there, which is bloody cool. As far as I know not a lot of breweries offer this in Japan. And people cannot brew their own beer at home, due to strict laws, so this is a really awesome oppertunity for people in Japan.

Keep an eye out for the owl mascot of this beer, and drink a lot of it! Support companies doing cool things like this!

Yo Ho Brewing - Yona Yona Ale 330ml can.

Name: Yona Yona Ale

Brewery: Yo Ho Brewing

Style: Pale Ale

Purchased at: Liquor store in a super market.

Price: ¥350

Taste: 9.5/10

Alcohol Level: 5.5%

Music: I was playing guitar while drinking this beer. I have a 7 string guitar, running through a bass amp with a Rat distortion. Just messing around with some heavy sounding riffs.


Snack: Beef Jerky, later that evening I ate pizza.

Website: http://yohobrewing.com/e/yonayona.html

Experience:

In the last review I reviewed an IPA made by the same company that made this beer. It was terrible and I'd prefer to never have it again. This beer, however, is one of the best beers I've had here in Japan. It's a Pale Ale, which I am already a fan of, but to me it doesn't have any of the bad tastes some Pale Ales can have, where they end up tasting like soap.

This beer was kind of citrusy, it has a great golden colour and looks perfect when poured into a glass. It goes down smooth and it is extremely refreshing. There's a bar at the station in Nagano that serves this beer in those glasses that look kinda like wine glasses, but for beer. I raised my glass and drank to those who were frantically trying to catch their trains. Little did they know, with all their rushing around from place to place, that the perfect beer in the perfect glass was located in the very place their journeys began! If you find yourself at Nagano station, tear up your ticket and head to the second floor, there's a bar there with a sausage place right across from it. You can drink this beer all night and eat sausages at the same time, sounds pretty good to me.

Yona Yona apparently means "Night after night" in Japanese. I guess they are implying you could drink this beer night after night without getting sick of it. I think because it doesn't have any super strong flavours in particular this could be true. I don't see what there would be to get sick of. It's just a clean, fresh tasting beer.

The only reason I didn't give this beer a 10/10 is because I'm waiting for the true king of beers to reveal itself to me. At the moment this beer is probably my favourite one in Japan. If you see it, bloody go for it, I don't see how you could possibly regret it.

Today is Friday, so I daresay I will be grabbing a few of these on the way home tonight.