Craft Beer Live Namba 2014

Craft Beer Live in Namba gets something of a bad rap among local beer geeks and is definitely seen by them as something of a second-tier festival. This is due to their interesting concept on focusing exclusively on Kansai area breweries.   Meaning that while you might find beers you normally can't many may not be so creative or delicious.                                          

Craft Beer Live goes to great lengths to bring together pretty much all the breweries operating in Kansai from nationally famous places like Minoh to breweries in tiny agricultural parks that tend to never leave their rural setting like Ajiwai no Sato - Tango Beer. So for me it's a great place to try breweries without having to go out into the sticks, very useful as I don't have a car and even if I did drinking and driving isn't a good idea.

Ajiwai no Sato - Tango Beers

The big drawback of this concept is many of the beers available aren't that good or interesting. Plenty of the breweries put out the typical Japanese craft beer triumvirate: Alt, Kolsch, Pilsener. This is slowly changing though, with mixed results.

One of my complaints at the fest, was that I wanted to see more special one-off beers made for it, I was kind of gripping about it while drinking the event beer: CB Ale/Craft Beer Live Ale from Chitei Ryoko.                                                                                                                                                                                A 5% English pale ale it poured a cloudy copper gold with a thin filmy off-white head. It had a pleasing mild biscuity malty aroma. Medium bodied with a very soft & smooth mouthfeel. The taste has a surprisingly bitter finish on that solid malt base. Average to good.                                                                                                                     Craft Beer Live has had a special beer made for the event during the last 2 years which I applaud, last year was a collaboration between Akashi & Dotombori Beer called Beer Hero - YPL a pale lager. 

Near the end of the festival I finally noticed that Minoh had trotted out more than their core range by putting together Yuzu Pale Ale one-off for the event. That certainly put a stop to my complaining! 

5.5% a cloudy copperish-gold with a thick foamy head. The aroma is very fruity hops, with a good dose of Yuzu. Med-light bodied with a zesty mouthfeel. Earthy piney fruit aroma, the taste is fruity hops with a mild dash of Yuzu. Good stuff.

So while it might not be the best festival in the Kansai calendar, it's well run and has a specific goal - to highlight local breweries. That's a goal I can support and hopefully we'll continue to see improvement from many of the smaller rural breweries.

Overall, if you happen to be in Osaka when Craft Beer Live is happening in May it's worth popping in to get an overview of what's going on among local breweries. While it may not be winning that much praise among beer geeks it's incredibly popular among locals with tons of people showing up to enjoy the food, beer & entertainment. 

Now let's take a look at some beer!

Blumen Kugel a farm brewery out in Shiga had only one beer on tap: a pilsner. 5.5% a cloudy gold pour with a half centimeter  foamy head. A really nice clean crackery malt aroma. Light bodied but with a fairly thin somewhat watery mouthfeel. The taste is malts all the way crackery mostly with a mild bitter finish. Quite tasty but not terribly complex. It needs more body. I'd like to try more of their beers.

Ajiwai no Sato / Tango Beer's Rye Lager, pours a deep gold with a solid spicy & cracker/biscuit aroma. A nice full bodied beer, with a tasty cracker pils malt body with a dash of spicy rye. Pretty good. Not an adventurous brewery but solid. 

Harvest Hill Weizen

Harvest Hill

 Harvest no Oka / Harvest Hill's summer seasonal weizen. 5% a solid cloudy gold pour with a decent filmy head with a big clove spicy weizen aroma. Med-thin bodied but smooth making it dead-easy to gulp down. The taste is tangy fruitiness, spicy cloves and wheat. Pretty damn good. Made once a year a spring/summer seasonal.

I'd been wanting to try Nagisa's seasonal Golden Ale and finally tracked it down at Craft Beer Live. A cloudy deep gold pour with a thin filmy head that lingers. A nice fruity aroma that has a good dose of crackery malts shining through. It's fairly smooth, light bodied with a round carbonation. It has a well balanced flavor: cracker malts & fruity ester/hop notes. Good stuff.

Ajiwai no Sato/Tango Beer's Smoke Beer. Shared by my friend Joshua.  A ruby brown pour with a nice smokey aroma. The flavor is pretty decent with a good smokey flavor, some fruitiness & caramel. Not bad.

 Soni Kohgen the only brewery I know of in Nara made Sentokun no Happoshu a  blueberry beer. 5% an earthy cloudy purple pour with a somewhat pink head. The aroma’s pretty good - fruity blueberry & a vinous. The taste is fruity, pretty good solid blueberry - a decent fruit beer. Not bad.

entertainment

winding down

Craft Beer Live 2013 (Osaka - Namba Hatch)

Yesterday I went to Craft Beer Live 2013, this is a nice event that supports Kansai Breweries and is held at Namba Hatch by the river. This spot seems to be ground zero for beer events in Osaka with a few of them being held here including next September's World Craft Tasting organized by Ai from Craft Beer Base. I'm looking forward to checking that out...

The event featured 19 breweries from all over Kansai, including larger breweries like Minoh and tiny ones located in agricultural parks that are basically brewpubs (Ajiwai no Sato & Harverst Hill). I had a good time talking beer with Mick, Ajen, Maek, and meeting Duncan Brotherton from Gee Beer. Big thanks to Maek for bring delicious snacks!

I started the night with a Garnet Rouge from Konishi which was quite nice.


After that I had Minoh's Hoppy Pale Ale which was made for the event and while not hoppier than a regular pale ale was well made with a West Coast hop profile. The woman in the pale blue t-shirt is actually Kaori-san the current head of Minoh Beer.

Next up was another beer made especially for the event, the Akashi & Dotombori Collaboration beer (also made for the event) called Beer Hero - a YPL which was a better than average lager.

My Dotombori Wheat Ale was the biggest disappointment of the fest for me, it just tasted kind of off and not so palatable. Too bad.

I had wanted to try the Blueberry beer from Soni Kougen Brewery down in Nara but by the time I got to it, it was sold out!













I followed that with Minoh's Peach Sour which was pretty good, the sweetness of the peach was balanced by a nice tart sour taste, really easy to drink.



My last beer of the night was Ajiwai no Sato's Smoked Beer which was a decent Rauch Beer. Smokey & easy to drink.

I also shared a bottle of my Honey  Lemon Weizen homebrew which was well received and my Ballast Point Sea Monster Imperial Stout. All in all a nice chill event which is reasonably priced (400 yen a glass).

I'll probably go to this event again...

http://www.tcbn.co.jp/beerfes/index.html