The Home for Hopheads.

What happens to all those beer experts who try one too many hoppy beers?

They end up in the Home for Hop Heads.

This place is a haven of sanctuary for all and any hop heads who have just burnt themselves out on hops. Believe me, it happens. Far more than people would like to admit.
These once proud men who drank by the UK pint, of anything that was brewed in this wide, wide world, no matter what the IBU was - they drank it.
And now they are paying the ultimate price.
They have become drooling, incoherent hop heads.

You may have noticed the apparent absence of the legends among foreign beer experts such as Mr.Scarrel, Mr.Choggins or Mr.Hambers (names altered to protect their identities)?
Well, perhaps they all succumbed to the hop or ended up at the Home for Hop Heads and that was were they spent their last hoppy moments in this wonderful world. Drooling after hops.

The latest batch of residents can bear witness to the awesome power of the hop.

Kids, pay attention: too much of the hop and this is what you will become.

I was granted rare permission to visit the reclusive Home for the Hopheads.
I was searched at the entrance for hidden hops and had to swear that I hadn't drank any hoppy brews for at least 48 hours previously (apparently, then can smell it).
Security was high. for good reason.
The last resident to 'escape' left the premises, disguised as a sailor and was last seen on the train to Yokosuka. Since then they have beefed up security precautions.

I am told it can take up to 6 months to rehabilitate hop heads back into the normal world of the pale ales and brown porters. Some never come back.

Here, in the Home for Hop Heads, I managed to get a brief glimpse of a few of these once great men, as they paraded about like drooling vegetables.
They are expertly cared for by the professionally trained Home for Hop Heads staff.

Just take a look at this poor bugger:He used to be a veritable encyclopaedia of information on almost any brewery or brewer in Japan. Now look at him.

I'm afraid it was just a case of one too many hoppy pints and now he doesn't even know who he is any more.
He had to be weened off the hops over a period of several months. Here he is, being spoon fed by the wonderfully patient staff.
It almost pains me to think about how such a well informed man could recduce himself to being spoon fed liquid soup, just to survive.

I joined a few of the recovering hopheads during their tea time break. I tried to interview this fellow but it was like talking to a raving lunatic.I couldn't make out anything he was saying. He kept muttering things like "Ay kannae ge nae aibeeeyeeeews!" and "gizza wee dram o aipeeeeyaaaay, yer sazzzarnakel yeh!", "och, ah miss maaaah chinook, so ah doooooo!". Total gibberish. The staff later informed me that this one was well into the advanced stages of Hopheadism.

The experts here try to use normal life routines and procedures to jaunt their memories and hopefully bring them back out of Hop Headism and into the real world once more.

Here the staff are trying to have a Christmas party:I don't think the poor Hophead above even knows what his name is (he kept muttering "I'm Chuwy..no, I'm Chris..no, It's Chuwy...or...Chris?..."), let alone that it is Christmas.

He looks too far gone. Better for everyones sakes if they just take him out the back and shoot him.

They have had some limited success in the 'outings for Hop Heads' programme.
This sponsored program takes hop heads that are deeemed low security risks on little day trips, so stimulating their mental systems and hopefully snapping them out of their hop like trances.
Here little Jimmy HopHead (for the sake of anonymity) is still beaming, after returning from a day trip to Disneyland:

Update: Unfortunately, staff later discovered his ear-to-ear smile was due to the bottle of Harvestmoon IPA he had somehow smuggled out of Mickey Mouse's Magical Kingdom.

So there you have it, a never before seen glimpse into the limbo that is life after hops.
Once you hop, you can't stop.

Kids, be careful how you handle those hops.
Don't become a hop head.
It'll be the ruination of you.

Czech this out - PUB CRAWL!

A friend of mine, Jiří Kotýnek is in town.
Jiri is Czech. He is a brewer.
He brews for the Nihon Kai lub in Ishikawa.
He likes beer.He asked me to take him to some interesting bars and have some good beer.
I do like a challenge!

PUB CRAWL!!!!He gets off work today at 1:30. Then it's on!

I'm hoping to have already started, in the Nakameguro Taproom.I'll be drinking Baird beer and probably 2 of the 4 beers Nagano Trading have on at that place.
I'll be trying the Stone Arrogant Bastard and the Ballast Point big eye IPA.
Lovely beers!

I’m　hoping Jiri can meet me there and we can have a few warm up drinks.Then we go to Yokohama and Pivovar Yokohama, where we hope to meet the chief brewer, Suzuki san. Suzuki san worked breifly in Prague at the famous brewpub Ur fleku and met Jiri, so it should be a nice reunion - with lots of beer!

I want to try the Apache Scream IPA!

Then we go to the Thrash Zone, to meet Tim Maloney and maybe one or two others (Chuck?).I'll also try a Big EYE IPA there and compare it with the Taproom quality.
I'll also recommend Jiri try a Nagahama ale and maybe Shinano, as well as Minoh beers.

Then it's off on the Toyoko line to Shibuya and maybe a brief food stopthen to the Aldgate, where we are hoping to meet up with a few home brewing friends who may want to meet Jiri and 'pump him' for information.After a few beers there, we rush to Towers and Bulldog and Nagano Sake miura if we have time.
If not, we go straight to Popeyes, and the last bar of the day.
It's a tiny bar, with just SEVENTY beers on tap.It's gotta end at Popeyes.
Not sure if I can manage all 70 beers, but I'm gonna try and see how far I go.Once you get there, you're not going anywhere else.

Hoping we can last the night.
If you feel like coming out, why don't you join us?

Come on, it's Friday!

Just take care not to drink too much, or you never know how the evening may turn out.

Wahatever you do, have a great weekend.

Happy New Year!!!! Grrrr!!!!!

New, year, new decade.

The year of the TIGER!I hope you all have a great 2010.
I'm off to the Craft Beer Bar, in Kannai, one of the few remaining bars to be open during this time.

They have a great line up of quality Japanese craft beer:

Minoh English bitter (hand pump)
Baird Teikoku IPA
Fujisakura weissen
Shiga Kogen pale ale
Swan Lake Belgian IPA
Swan Lake IPA
Iwate Kura pale ale (handpump, latest batch)
Hakusekikan doux marriage
Baeren schwarz
Harvestmoon New Year pilsner

The perfect way to usher in the New Year!
If you fancy it, pop down and join me for a few!

Just be careful not to drink too much, or you may find yourself waking up next to a big fat pig.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Here's to my birthday and the end of the world!

Happy New Year!

Yes, I said 'Happy New Year'.
Well, today is Winter Solstice, after all.
The darkest day of the year. When darkness ruled the earth and a crazy, barely human, mostly beastly being came into this world - me!

"Grrrr!"

From now, winter is in retreat and the spring is coming.
This is really the end of the year/start of the next.
The day which was meant for Christmas, to coincide/take over from the pagan festival at that time.
Also, just 3 years left, until the end of the world!

What more reasons do you need, to reach for a brew?

Me, I'm helping myself to a nice birthday Sculpin IPA and celebrating in all it's wonderfully hoppy madness!Cheers!

"We're all gonna die!"

'tis the season to pimp your IPA: A Yuzu challenge

Today is the 21st December, Winter Solstice, Darkest Day of the year, Chuwy's Birthday. It's also the time of the year that Japanese put a yuzu in their bathwater.
Yuzu is kind of a strange Japanese citrus fruit that's very lemony, grapefruity, zesty, zingy and looks like this:Well, I do like yuzu and remember drinking a yuzu ale, made by Harvest Moon and finding it very nice.
Another time, whilst I was drinking (and being very drunk) Suruga Bay DIPA in the Numazu Taproom, I happened upon some strange fruit. It was a little like yuzu, so I squeezed some into my beer. Wow! It really gave the beer a fresh zing.

I thought why not try dry hopping beer with yuzu?

People do dry hop with fruit, so I decided to do a small, simple, controlled experiment, using my balls.

I had 3 glasses. I used my IPintheA as a control beer.Glass 1 had nothing in it, so was just the beer.
The next glass help a mesh filter that had the yuzu flesh and some squeezed juice in the glass.
The third glass held one of my little balls, with yuzu peel cut up very small, inside.
I tried not to get any white pith in there, as the pith is bitter.


I then poured equal amounts into the 3 glasses.
The results may not be surprising.

The first glass tasted normal (as 'normal' as Chuwy's beer can taste).
The second glass with the flesh and juice was very aromatic but overwhelmingly bitter and sour tasting, from the juice and pith and flesh. This may be why Japanese mostly use the zest, for cooking and flavouring.
The third glass was nicely aromatic and just a tad to bitter.
I was hoping for a fresh zingy taste but just got bitterness, primarily.
One thing I did try next was to take my ball and dip it gently and briefly into my IPintheA.
The aroma was subtle but present.
The flavour bitter but not overly so.
The zest was still smelling fantastic and zingy fresh, hours later after being taken out of the beer.
I think the best thing to do would be to dry hop a beer using just the zest and with as little white pith as possible. Then leave that gently soak for a few days, for the zesty zing to soak into the beer.
I didn't have a few days, so this experiment was quite limited.
Hey, you never know until you try, right?

Has anyone out there tried this, in one of their home brews?
I may try it out soon, seeing as this is the season for it.

It's the season of renewal, it's the season for yuzu.
Why not try it yourself?
I'm sure YULE like it!