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!

"Bakayaro!!!!"

This was how I was greeted, one time last year, as soon as I walked into Maltan bar in Kanda, Tokyo.
A largish group of Japanese beer lovers were gathered at the bar with the owner and saw me and suddenly got into a group huddle, then they all turned in unison and shouted at me

"Bakayaro!!!!"

In Japanese, this means something like "You f*cking idiot!" or "Motherf*cker!".

Bakayaro! Itsumo, itsumo osoku made nondeiru. kesa, moo juuji sugita, okinakatta kara shigoto de kubi wo kiru hazu ja nai ka?

Dumb butt! Always, ALWAYS you are drinking until it's late. Then this morning it's already past ten o'clock and because you didn't get up, shouldn't they fire you at work.

Well, I didn't know quite how to react.
WTF have I done, now?
I must have met them before and done something terrible, whilst drunk - not again!
I almost pleaded with them "I'm sorry, I swear your sisters/daughters told me they were 18 and I never knew the other woman was your wife and I'm sure with a little effort, those stains will come out of those curtains & ok, I'll buy you another flat scren TV!", but it was then that I realised - they think I'm Chris Poel.

I've been confused with another person before.
A certain bar owner had for a long time been more than little cold with me and I found out later from a similar looking 'friend' that it was he who in fact had walked in on said bar owner's wife, whilst she was in full flow, in an unlocked toilet. That helps to explain why said bar owner insists that I 'scared' his wife.

Well, my name is Chris.
Chris Poel's name is... ...Chris.

Chris Poel is famous for being a home brewing champion and for making some excellent beer and being an all round great guy to get to know.
I am notorious for being the weird guy who sits by himself, taking pictures of his beers and drinking like a thirsty camel with a hole in its stomach.
Well, two plus two equalled twelfty and they assumed I was he, the Bakayaro creator himself.
Bakayaro is the creation of Chris Pole and he made his 'ode to he Stone Arrogant Bastard, American strong ale' at Baird Beer.
It was that very beer that had just won the Japanese Beer award for best beer (I think Bryan Baird came in second, interestingly enough!), so it wasn't too difficult to work out why they shouted out what they did.

In hindsight, I should have just winged it and grabbed a few congratualatory free pints then mention that there was a problem batch with Baird beer and I am there to recall all the barrels and then proceed to do that at every bar in Tokyo.
Damn you, hindsight!!!

Well, Bakayaro (IBU's: 90, Alcohol Percentage: 8% OG 1.080, double dry-hopped with Centennial) is being released to day, starting at the Harajuku Taproom, from 5pm.
Chris Pole himself will be tapping the first keg and will be in the Harajuku Taprom until around 8:30pm or so.

Here's a good interview of Chris, from the Good Beer Country Boys, after he won best beer at the Real Ale Festival.

Later on, he'll be at the Naka Meguro Taproom, along with Bryan Baird and Sayuri Baird, to send off Yokota-chan, who is the current manager and will be moving back to his native Shizuoka to start his own business.

I'll be the in in the Harajuku Taproom around 5, with an eyepatch and a cork on his thumb - just in case (long story, that has tended to repeat itself).
I'll also be looking weird, sitting by myself and be taking pictures of my beer.

Please don't hesitate to shout out "Bakayaro!"