Month: January 2005

Japan’s Beer-Like Substances

This is somewhat depressing news given my inclination towards quality real ale:

Kirin to enter market for ‘3rd-category beer’ this springThursday, January 13, 2005 at 07:00 JST
TOKYO — Kirin Brewery Co said Wednesday it will join three other major Japanese breweries this spring in offering a product known as “the third-category beer,” a beer-tasting alcoholic beverage that is in a lower tax bracket because of its ingredients. The beer-like beverage accounted for about 5% of sales of beer and the like in 2004, underlying a growing demand for the new beverage, said Kirin President Koichiro Aramaki. (Kyodo News)

Once can only presume that the 3rd level is below discount. Can any Asian correspondents enlighten us on this? Interesting to note that the Asia Times is reporting a concurrent decline in overall Japanese beer consumption and a move to the third way as an effort to get around taxation. Guinness, one of the great beers of the world in both an economic and quality sense, was created for the very same reason when Britain moved to the taxation of malt included in beer rather than the final alcohol content (if I am recollecting correctly…I did! See here). The result was a beer high in unmalted raw rolled barley and blackened but raw roast barley and a resulting low-carb profile. I suspect the Japanese will not come up with such a happy outcome.

Kingston Brewing Company, Kingston, Ontario


Readers in the local area may have noticed I have yet to write about the Kingston Brewing Company, more commonly called the Kingston Brew Pub. It’s just that I have not got a set of photos that capture the place more than anything but I popped in mid-afternoon today and made a start.

I have been going to the Kingston Brew Pub for more than a decade. When we lived three hours drive away, during LBK (Life Before Kids) we planned long weekends around meals there. Now I work a block away and am happy because of it, even to pop in for the lunch special or a cup of coffee mid-afternoon. The beers on tap are mainly their own but they do have McAuslan Oatmeal Stout and Guinness – based on the belief, I think, that now one can improve much on these examples of the styles. There is a bloggers meet up tomorrow evening there at 5 pm so I will have more thoughts and notes on a couple of ales after that.

Later: Ok. I never took any notes. I blabbed about blogs and failed to note the Winter Whallop or the Dragon’s Breath IPA. But I did get a couple of pictures of the upstairs.




Royalty Dork

I can recall, twenty odd years ago, at a Kings College fancy dress up during undergrad telling the jerk to leave who thought dressing like a Nazi was funny. The bar refused him service, no one suggested there was any excuse and it was done. Why did no one assist Prince Harry with that simple truth?

Second Third in line, eh? A republic is looking better and better.

Sadness

I do not write much about work because I quite like my work and it is usually not that good an idea to write about your work. But I would be missing a great sadness not to note the very surprising passing of the CAO of Kingston, my boss’s boss’s boss, Bert Meunier, whose obituary in the Whig-Standard this morning captures many of the qualities I got to know in working with him. Here is the Whig’s take on his career, much of which is a noting of events before my time. If I was to add anything it would be that, as set out in the articles, the principles that he clearly fought for have been adopted and are being brought into day to day action.

Belgium: Orval Trappist, Villers-devant-Orval

orvalOrval. This is the nicest little bottle of ale in the hand. Shaped like a Perrier bottle in brown, decorated with a fish on a gold ring, it is the product of Trappist monks – one of the five (or is it six?) real Trappist ales going…well, except St. Sixtus of Westvleteren which you have to go yourself to the Abbey to buy.

If you want to know what Belgian hops are like, antique and dignified like brittle lace, this is a great beer to try. Rajotte says it is dry hopped for a month and its taste is primarily a play of wild twiggy herbal yeast and hop with only a supporting role for the malt. As a result, it has a fairly light body with a orval1mouth filled with rustic flavour, thyme and lavander.

As with a good clovey southern German hefeweizen, a pork roast would do very well sitting in Orval for half a day before meeting the fire.