At least it is actually BEER. Unlike most of the Wasabi people eat, which is horseradish and green food coloring
It says right there on the back of the bottle itās brewed in Los Angeles or Williamsburg, VA, by A/B, and the word āimportedā does not appear anywhere on it, soā¦
Hereās a link to the label in all its glory:
http://beer.findthebest.com/l/99/Kirin-Ichiban
And really, to be honest, itās a beer one would rather have brewed nearby than far away. Itās doesnāt keep well.
Iāve always found Kirin to be a run-of-the-mill lager that could be produced anywhere, so this doesnāt surprise me particularly. I just wonder how much culpability restaurants have. Every sushi place Iāve been to sells Kirin as an āimportā, marked up accordingly. Do they share some of the blame or are they also victims for being told the beer they were buying for resale was imported?
Anyway Iāve always found that a nice IPA goes better with sushi, and have no problem paying a little more for it.
since restaurants regularly label āGeorge Killianās Irish Redā as an import, iām guessing that they just donāt give a shit. or maybe Ireland conquered Colorado at some point?
They donāt. And good luck with the fish!
You know, Iāve always been told that I should order Kirin over Sapporo, and Iāve always, like the sub-taster I am, ordered Sapporo instead. My only beef with them is when they stopped making oilcans with handles. Those were the best.
You also see Sam Adams listed as an āimport.ā That words does not mean what that word actually means when it comes to beer. Just means āmore expensive.ā
Looks like most of the major Japanese beers sold in the U.S. actually come from Canadaā¦
produced at a Sapporo-owned brewery in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Suntory beer is not available. Orion Beer is also available, imported from Okinawa Prefecture.
Iāll be on the lookout now for Suntory or Orion.
Oooh! Oooh! You must be one of those grammar-nazi vocabulary elitists who thinks words should mean what they mean, rather than what illiterate or donāt-give-a-fuck people use them for! Why do you hate the evolution of language?
So still imported, then.
Sapporo is produced at a Sapporo-owned brewery in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
I got no beef with that. Shipping a 99% water product in aluminum across the ocean is, after all, pretty stupid.
Suntory beer is not available.
Good.
Orion Beer is also available, imported from Okinawa Prefecture.
Interesting. Iāve seen it in a supermarket in Japantown, and in a Izakaya joint in Berkeley that seems to specialize in Okinawan liquor (Ippuku, strongly recommended), but I always assumed they were importing it independently for novelty value.
Itā¦lends authenticity, I guess.
do you really want something shipped over in a huge Tanker that may or may not have previously contained bleach?
Ahh, the soba houses in Okinawa. I donāt recall what beer I was drinking then, itās likely I was happy enough to have communicated enough to get the beer and food in the first place. In fact, when I was in the grocery store, Iād often do a Mystery Can by buying one of the chilled aluminum cans in what I thought was the beer section. Sometimes it was horrid green tea, other times a salty, brothy thing, and every now and again it was beer.
Occasionally Iāll buy a Kirin, mostly because I think the can itself could be used as a bludgeoning device, but the beer isnāt bad while itās cold.
Comment by ābeerisgoodā from the original article:
The settlement does not require receipts for claims up to $15. Claims can be made on line at www.kirinbeersettlement.com starting next week.
Correction: claims up to $12.
Look out for Hitachino Next Beer, too.
http://www.kodawari.cc/?en_home/products/hitachino-nest-beer.html
I can get it at my local Whole Foods, most of the time.
It makes sense that A-B would brew Kirin, because it is a rice based lager, as is their āBudweiserā (30% rice). Itās hard to get a strong-flavored beer with rice.
Just about every Japanese restaurant Iāve ever visited didnāt offer anything other than their run-of-the-mill Japanese lagers or Heineken. And Iād take a Japanese lager over a Heineken any day. Which is strange, because Iāve eaten at some pretty nice sushi places and youād expect that theyād understand the importance of pairing an excellent beer with excellent fish.
Even when I went to Japan, I didnāt find much in the way of ābeer cultureā though I didnāt really get a chance to explore that much. I think I did have a Baird beer there that was pretty good - I think theyāre the local equivalent of Sam Adams. I also visited a place called Craftheads in Shibuya and they had some decent stuff on tap, but I donāt think the craft beer movement is very widespread in Japan at this point.
Exactly! Just like how the imported Chinese pajamas at WalMart are so much more costly than those from the tailor in town.
thereās the Kiuchi brewery which produces the Hitachino Nest brand of beers. theyāre expensive and hard to find in the US, but iāve thoroughly enjoyed the ones iāve had. particularly, their āreal ginger beerā is the only one iāve ever tried that was good.
I remember some issues with Carlsberg āExportā that was (and is, presumably) brewed in Britain.
