(by Mai Furukawa) It’s so hard to turn away a good beer. Once I take a sip of a well-made one, resistance is futile and I dive right in. For those of us serious fans, it’s times like these where a sip might as well be a pint. On this occasion, I was drinking a…
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again. The proverb exemplifies the brewing career of Kengo Saito, now at the helm at Number Nine Brewery in Yokohama. Saito’s fifteen-year journey was one of persistence that took a detour through Oceania before returning him to the Land of the Rising Sun, where he…
Video games and beer go well together. Why shouldn’t they? There’s a fine balance between beer boosting your enjoyment of a game and it diminishing your skills (though that, in itself, can be entertaining). It’s not at all unusual to find at least one arcade-style game in brewery taprooms in the U.S. Some taprooms have…
The number of breweries launching or updating online retail sites in Japan seems to be growing by the day, and rightfully so. For many, online retail may be the only way they survive these uncertain times. This is by no means a complete list of Japanese breweries that offer online retail. It’s a curated one…
(Carncross and Stockwell) Brewing trends in recent years have often revolved around delivering to consumers something new or, in some cases, extreme. Some of the creations that have arisen from the insanity have stuck, like the hazy IPA, while others have sunk in popularity as quickly as they appeared. Bucking these fads, Tokyo Aleworks brewers…
