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.

Matsumoto Brewery - Traditional Bitter, Pint

Name: Traditional Bitter

Brewery: Matsumoto Brewery

Style: Bitter

Purchased at: Matsumoto Brewery Tap Room

Price: ¥900

Taste: 9/10

Alcohol Level: 5%

Music: I was listening to Amusement Parks on Fire a lot at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhsWO6VI9XU

Snack: Pancakes.

Website: http://matsu-brew.com/


We were heading down to Matsumoto City in central Nagano for some exclusive pancakes and I decided to check if there was a beer brewery somewhere in the area. Matsumoto is a really cool place, it has some really nice old streets to walk around and some bloody great restaurants, so I thought there might be a brewery nearby. Sure enough, I came across the Matsumoto Brewery, and their tap room was right in town, so we decided to check it out. The venue has a small bar downstairs and a small room upstairs with a few tables. Downstairs was packed so we grabbed a pint of the Traditional Bitter and sat upstairs.

I've had regular bitter beers many times in the past that were pretty shitty. I associated the name 'bitter beer'' with a shitty, mass produced beer, I went in thinking it might be a bit crap. This wasn't the case at all, it was extremely smooth and delicious. I began to feel extremely cozy. The warm room and the old Japanese streets around me started to feel very comfy and I was ready to take a walk around. Maybe it was the beer talking though.

I believe they had two beers on tap, and four beers for sale to take home in bottles. I grabbed the four to try later. I tried the Traditional Bitter again at home and can safely say nothing was lost in bottling it up and enjoying it at home. It was still a terrific, tasty beer.

I really like their company slogan, ``WE NEED MORE BEER!!!`` I feel like they get me. They have bags and Tshirts with this printed on them 

If you find yourself in Matsumoto, I strongly recommend you check this place out. The staff there speak some English, so it's perfect for travelers who want to try some excellent, local craft beer. Taking a look at their facebook page, they seem to put on a lot of events around the town. They certainly are a lively bunch who want to get their beer out there and enjoyed amongst the people. So get out there, support them and drink a lot of their beer.