Just a short post. Over the last few years, perhaps due to family and tastes, I just seem to have gotten out of drinking beer very often, or at least the lager derived beer which constitutes such a large percentage of the market here. I should say though that whilst wine now represents the small amount of alcohol beverages I do drink, I have been trying some local micro-brewery beers to see what the local brewers are offering.
The three I tried this month were from two breweries – “Shonan Bitter” from the Kumazawa Brewery and “Kamakura Prime” and “Enoshima Beer” from the Kamakura Beer Company.
Overall they were all palatable ales. I’m not sure I’d want to drink too many of any of them on a given night, but if you’re having a bit of a house party they’d go down pretty well. They’re a little bit pricey – even in supermarkets – going for 400-500yen a bottle, compared to the 200-300yen for a can of lager. That said, you’ll enjoy one of these more than two cans of Asahi Super Dry.
Despite the names, by European standards, they’re perhaps not deep, rich tasting beers but again, very decent, and fit the region they come from – Shonan is famed for it’s beaches and layed back attitude – to being almost horizontal at times, and drinking these I don’t think of oak beamed pubs but of open fronted cafes selling yakitori with surf boards propped up.
Looking around, the area seems well served with local brews apparently grown from local hops too, so as I try a few more I’ll perhaps post on them, and actually make some more notes on the taste comparison front. I wouldn’t mind getting on the bike and visiting a hop farm too.