A long weekend with jibeer

It was a jibeer-soaked long weekend ('shu-bun no hi'; spring equinox). On Friday I went to a colleague's farewell party at this little izakaya in Shinbashi. They started us with this ghastly dai-san stuff, and then somebody noticed that they also had their own craft brewed weizen on the menu. The weizen was passable, a little thin, but a damn sight better than the swill they served us at first.


For those who don't know, dai-san or 'third category' beverages were developed to compete with happoshu, another looks-like-beer-but-isn't style of alcoholic drink here in Japan. See, the gov taxes the hell out of beer. Or more specifically, they tax malt. So the clever beer manufacturers (notice I didn't say brewers? That was intentional! Neat, eh?) cleverly replaced 50% or more of the malt in their beer with adjuncts--other fermentable stuff, and called it happoshu, meaning 'sparkling spirits'. The other stuff could be corn, soy, or pea--I mean pee. And it tastes accordingly. Happoshu is cheaper, and your average Joe or Kenji can't tell the difference. So then the gov gets mad cuz their tax revenue starts falling off, and they start taxing happoshu too. Well what do those wily bev co's do? They make beer without any malt, or mix happoshu with another kind of alcohol, and market it as a refreshing beer-like drink. It's called third category because it doesn't yet have a tax designation. I have a designation for it though: the drain.


After our little party some of us decided to go to an after party (nijikai in the local lingo). Lo-and-behold, right next door to the izakaya was a craft beer bar, a place called Cooper's. Really nice atmosphere inside, dark, and pretty authentic British pub-style. Except with smoking. Ha. It was spendy, so I just had a Stone IPA which was very fresh and tasty. My colleagues got a Chimay white, and a Baird Rising Sun Pale Ale. Both were super yummy. The beers. Not the colleagues.


I came home and decided I couldn't wait three more days to open my Anticipation Pale Ale; the anticipation was killing me. So I popped one open and shared it with my housemate. It was really green, and I was a little underwhelmed. There was no noticeable nuttiness to it. As you may recall I'd put roasted walnuts into the secondary fermenter. But last night while brewing batch #5, I opened another two and gave it another shot. Here's the vid.

Yes, as I mention in a previous post, due to a siphoning malfunction I had to prime the last few bottles individually. I was curious to see if there would be any difference in carbonation, and there was. The bottle-primed one was slightly less carbonated, with a fuller mouthfeel, and overall a better beer. So I'll need to reduce the amount of sugar I mix into the bottling bucket next time I guess. Both beers were mighty tasty though. I have to say this is probably my best effort yet, and I'm pretty proud of it. I'll enjoy presenting it at the homebrewers' hanami party at Yoyogi Park in a couple of weeks, and seeing what those guys have to say about it. I'll fill you in, for sure.


And now I've got 20 liters of amber ale sitting in the primary. It got a cold start and is only now just barely starting to bubble 24 hours later. The brew day went all right, but I did feel the acute need for two things. One is to move to all grain (i.e. buy more equipment) and the other is to get my assistant over here. Brewing solo isn't nearly as much fun.


Keep you posted.