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

Tuesday Tasting: Tainai Kogen Beer

Continuing my quest to try as many Japanese breweries, this week I'll be looking at Tainai Kogen Beer. I ordered a sampler 3 pack of their beers via Rakuten. They're a german style brewery located in the mountains of Niigata near the Tainai Ski area. Traditionally, they made 3 styles of beer: a Pilsner, a Weizen and an Alt but they've recently added a 4th style, a Rauch.

I chose to order the Rauch, Alt and Weizen.

One thing I like about this brewery are their clean modern labels. Their core range is a classy black with brass colored katakana type and scenes from their mountain home. The Rauch has a big bold but clean label. Looks good!

I started off with the newest beer in their line up, the Rauch.

Rauch

5.5% It was a bit of a gusher when opened and had a HUGE head of beige-orange tinged foam. The head was very long lasting with decent lacing, nice. 

The color's a clear dark amber brown with ruby highlights - a truly beautiful looking beer. The nose is sweet, tangy & smokey though milder than Schlenkerla or Fujizakura's Rauch.

The beer's medium bodied with a silky mouthfeel. The taste is surprisingly earthy, malts then a hit of that smokey flavor. An interesting take on a rauch, more subtle than in your face but well done - I like it. 

I then moved onto their Alt which I chose to order over their Pilsner. Both are styles that I'm not terribly interested in but I find altbiers slightly more interesting.

Alt

5% It pours a dark reddish brown that is similar to the Rauch but the head while beige/brown & fizzy vanished quickly leaving no lacing behind unlike the thick head the Rauch gave, still a nice looking beer though. 

The aroma is toffee, caramel, a hint of anise and some grainy maltiness. It is medium bodied with a cola like somewhat heavy and rough carbonation giving it a fairly aggressive mouthfeel. 

The taste is again surprisingly cola like, some fudge, caramel, a bit of grains and a truly dry sharp finish. This beer isn't that smooth or balanced it's kind of an in-your-face altbier if that makes any sense. 

Last up is one style I usually enjoy, their hefeweizen. What I look for in a weizen is a good dose of cloves, a cloudy straw gold color, thick head of white foam and possibly some fruity banana or bubblegum notes with a soft body. Let's how it measures up.

Weizen

Served in a weizen glass as it should be! Tainan Kogen’s Weizen pours a slightly deeper gold than I am used to in a weizen but has an impressive thick fluffy head of foam that gives it good lacing and decent staying power. The aroma is an enticing fruity clove scent with bubblegum notes - oishisou! 

Medium to light bodied the mouthfeel is fairly smooth with a spritzy carbonation. The taste is a bit more average, cloves, spices, some fruity esters but also a bit of a watery quality taste-wise. A pretty good weizen. 

My favorite of the three was the Rauch, then the Weizen, then the Alt. Looks like these guys are a pretty decent little brewery.

Kyoto Craft Beer Festival 2014

Last Saturday saw Kyoto's shopping arcade host the 2014 edition of the Kyoto Craft Beer Festival. 34 breweries took part and the nice weather meant this year's festival was busier than ever. 

cute omelet snack

The local shops really got into the festival spirit and took advantage of the crowds to sell tons of delicious cheap snacks. You never had to walk more than a few paces to snag some good food for a couple of bucks. Score!

The problem from past festivals of an inadequate number of toilets was solved with some port-a-potties showing up as well as people using the restrooms in the supermarkets.

Pretty much EVERY brewery sold out by the end of the evening, hell many were out by 7pm, which just goes to show how popular this event is becoming. If this trend continues, I think the festival will outgrow the shopping arcade or possibly need to expand into a 2 day event. 

So while the crowds sometimes got tiring, they are a sign of a successful event. Good job guys! A special thanks goes out to all the many volunteers who helped make this a really fun festival.

In terms of the beers on hand at the event, I was surprised to see that Sankt Galen didn't show up and I think they were here last year. Most breweries that came brought their standard beers which was slightly disappointing for a beer geek looking to try new & unusual brews. 

Thankfully, a handful of breweries had some sake/beer hybrids on hand (Shonan & Ise Kadoya), Ichijoji as usual cranked out tons of fruit beers, plus Shiga Kogen & Daisen G brought some new releases. 

There were also some new breweries in the mix which was nice. I started my day with the Da-chi Bitter from Bay Brewing Yokohama. 

It was a solid example of the style, smooth subtle & malty - a nice start to my day.








I had next wanted to try Brewmaster's Amao Oatmeal Black but as it'd just sold out I tried their Cabos & Honey beer instead. A nice honey gold pour with a beige head that lingered and appetizing cabos fruit spritzy aroma. Medium bodied the taste was a bit cloying. It came off as some kind of citrusy sweet soda. Not bad per se but not really beer like...

As with last year's festival, Daisen G made one of my festival highlights again with their top notch Imperial Lager. This hoppy beer easily rivals a nice IPA. It poured a beautiful amber color with a big hoppy nose of herbal & citrusy hop notes - delicious. Medium bodied with a palate cleansing bitterness. A fest highlight for sure, the solid malt background gives the hops the support to shine with tons of flavor. 

Since I am also a big fan of fruit beers, Ichijoji's Pineapple Ale was also a star in my book. It was a nicely balanced beer with the pineapple being counter-balanced by a solid malty base. This didn't come off as a beer cocktail, it had enough body and malt flavor to clearly say "I am beer". Well done!

Rounding out my top three was Harvestmoon's Smoke Ale, a 5% rauch that poured a deep cloudy brown with ruby highlights. The aroma was smoked ham all the way, medium bodied, the beer was a mix of tasty smoke, smoked ham & malty goodness. 

Shiga Kogen's Draft Pale Ale and African Wheat Ale were both very solid too. The DPA was a tasty extremely drinkable Pale Ale while their new beer the African Wheat Ale was an exceptionally hoppy, citrusy wheat beer.

Y Market was a new brewery out of Nagoya generating a lot of buzz but long line ups and the fact I'd already tried their line up at the Dig Bar event meant I didn't have them that day. Baird sold out of their beers in 2 hours! So that was another brewery I couldn't try at the fest.

Y Market booth

All in all, the festival was well run & a great success. Keep up the good work guys!

Chitei/Miyajima Pilsner

Daisen G booth

Daisen G Yago