Tag: beer
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Smog City Brewing Company, Coffee Porter, US and Japan Versions.

Living in Japan I have access to some interesting products that are not common in the US. One of these is two versions of the same beer from a singular brewery, but packaged differently. I have access to beer sold at local Japanese bottle shops and beer sold at package stores on US Military Bases.…
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Baird Brewing Company, Wasabi Japan Pale Ale, Shuzenji, Japan

As my final term paper for school continues along I am getting to the point where I am looking at areas where Japanese craft beer’s exposure can expand. One of the areas I think will help with exposing Japanese Craft Beer is using traditional Japanese ingredients in beer brewing. Japan has a wide variety of…
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Spring Valley Brewery, Kyoto

In 1869 William Copeland, a Norwegian-American living in Japan, started what is believed to be the first beer brewery in Japan. Some 154 years later while vacationing in Kyoto, Japan I visited the Spring Valley Brew Pub. While Spring Valley started as a small brewery through a series of acquisitions and mergers the business is…
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Eleventh Beer of Christmas, Chatan Harbor Brewery, Lager

The Eleventh Beer of Christmas brings us back to Okinawa where we started. Chatan Harbor Brewery started in 2016 and is part of the Terrace Hotel Group in Okinawa. The brewery is located just north of American Village on the west side of the island of Okinawa. American Village is a shopping area just outside…
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Tenth Beer of Christmas, Kizakura Brewery, Kyoto Beer, Golden Ale

As we come to the end of the twelve beers of Christmas we return to the Kizakura Brewery. Like many beer breweries in Japan Kizakura has its foundation as a sake brewery. This beer is even more unique as it has been brewed with koji mold spores that are usually used to brew sake. Koji…
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Ninth Beer of Christmas, Echigo Brewery, Niigata Koshihikari

Today’s beer is made by the Echigo Brewery that I highlighted Flying IPA earlier in the beers of Christmas. This lager is a repackaging of the brewery’s regular line up beer Niigata Koshihikari. The art work on the can highlights the characters or mascots of the towns in Niigata. In the Japanese culture there is…
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Eighth Day of Christmas, Baren Brewery, Coral Island Sunset Lager

The Eighth Day of Christmas Beer celebrates the 10 year anniversary as Friendship Cities of Morioka and Uruma. The Baren Brewery is located in Iwate Prefecture where Morioka City is located. If Japan is viewed as a Dragon with Hokkaido being the head facing into the Pacific, Morioka is located in the dragon’s neck. Uruma…
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Seventh Day of Christmas, Yo-Ho Brewing Company, Tokyo Black, Porter

The seventh day of christmas beers takes us back to a previous brewery. Yo-Ho Brewing has produced an English Porter that is just as much to style as the earlier Yona Yona Pale Ale. Earthy bitter hop aroma on the nose. Spicy hop aroma with a slight pine resinous scent. Really the smell if you…
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Fifth Day of Christmas, Kizakura Brewery, Kyoto Beer, Brown Ale.

Kizakura Brewery takes its name from a cherry tree variety that blooms later than others and has a yellow flower. This is different from other cherry blossoms which bloom white or light pink in the spring. Kizakura Brewery produces several lines of beverages. These are Lucky Brew, Kizakura Sake, Yuzu High-Ball, and Kyoto Beer. In…
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First Day of Christmas, Helios Brewery, Sheequarsar White Ale

The first beer of Christmas starts here in Okinawa Japan. The Southern most province of Japan. In 1961 when Okinawa was still a Military Protectorate following the Second World War, Tadashi Matsuda started the the Helios Distillery. Originally he sought to “Produce a Product Made of the Finest Locally Grown Ingredients”. This product was initially…
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Homebrew Legalization Day, United States, 14 October

I generally stay far away from politics, but today is an exception. Forty-four years ago today President James (Jimmy) Earl Carter Jr. signed the Federal Transportation Bill H.R. 1337. A transportation bill may seem like a strange thing for a beer enthusiast to be happy about, but there was an amendment in that bill that…
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Mid-term Break from Learning About Beer to Enjoy Some Beers

This is mid-term week for Auburn Brewing Science Masters Program. I am up to my eyeballs in yeast cell biology, contamination test, and calculations for mass and energy. After a few days of studying I needed a break. I decided to try a Comparison Tasting for the Certified Cicerone Exam that I am also studying…
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Wet Hop Beer

Right now (September-October) on hop farms around the world, farmers are picking this years crop of hops. The hummulous lupus is a bine where hops grow on the female plants. Hops grow best between the 38º and 51º parallel. The shortening days combined with the cooler evenings cause the hop cones to develop and ripen.…