Omiya

Keyaki Autumn Beer Festival

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Keyaki Autumn Beer Festival

Finding really good beer in Japan can be a bit of a crapshoot. We’ve learned to enjoy tolerate the mass-produced lagers and rejoice in the discovery of good local craft beers. This makes it hard to pass up events like this week’s Keyaki Autumn Beer Festival in Omiya, Saitama.

Featuring nearly 100 stalls featuring mostly Japanese craft breweries, the two annual Keyaki Festivals (we attended the spring festival last year) are a beer lover’s dream. We missed the spring festival this year and nearly missed the fall festival when we were tipped off by the local Rogue Ales distributor of its goings-on.

If you’re in the Saitama area, the festival continues through September 23, 2015. Check out the excellent Beer Tengoku blog or the Keyaki Festival site (Japanese only) for more details.

Over the course of a couple hours, we worked our way through several quality Japanese and American beers. Enjoy the rundown!

Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale
Elysian Brewing Company • Seattle, WA USA    IBU: N/A     ABV: 6.7%     ★★★

Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale
Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale

The Cascadian beer market is flooded with pumpkin-infused beers this time of year, but despite the popularity of kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) in cooking, it doesn’t seem to make its way into brewing recipes. Fortunately, one of the importers brought some Night Owl Pumpkin Ale from Elysian Brewing in Seattle. The Night Owl is how I want pumpkin beer to taste—like someone dumped a pumpkin pie into a good quality ale. Elysian uses 150 lbs. of pumpkin in each batch and flavor it with traditional pumpkin pie spices. The result is magic.

NoLi Jet Star Imperial IPA
NoLi Brewhouse • Spokane, WA USA    IBU: 115     ABV: 8.1%     ★★★

In the category of “go big or go home,” our next beer was an 8.1% ABV 115 IBU Imperial IPA from Spokane, Washington’s NoLi Brewhouse. The Jet Star IIPA dry-hops Chinook and Cascade hops to give that extra piney flavor and just enough citrus to balance the bitterness. We tend to give IPAs preferential treatment since they’re so hard to come by over here, but this one really hit the spot. The high IBU makes it a slow-drinker, which gave us plenty opportunity to be discerning about our next choice.

We didn't try Baird's beers this time around since they have easily-accessible tap houses throughout the Tokyo metro area, but we did sample some of the hot peppers they scored at the festival. We did NOT try the Carolina Reapers; the reigning champion for hottest pepper on the planet coming in at 2.2 million scovilles, six times hotter than a habanero pepper.
We didn’t try Baird’s beers this time around since they have easily-accessible tap houses throughout the Tokyo metro area, but we did sample some of the hot peppers they scored at the festival. We did NOT try the Carolina Reapers; the reigning champion for hottest pepper on the planet coming in at 2.2 million scovilles, six times hotter than a habanero pepper.

Echigo Koshihikari Rice Lager
Uehara Shuzou Co. Ltd. • Nishikanbara, Niigata JP    IBU: N/A     ABV: 5.0%     ★★★

The guys at the Echigo Beer booth were lonely
The guys at the Echigo Beer booth were lonely

The guys at the booth for Japan’s oldest microbrewery seemed a little bored when they waved us over and asked us to try their Koshihikari beer, made from Koshihikari rice, the most expensive grain in Japan. They even poured a very generous sample while waiving the 500 yen (about $5 USD) price tag. This was one of the more unique beers of the day and really held its flavors coming right from the tap. The lager itself was very light and refreshing, but the rice gave it an earthiness that was surprisingly pleasant. I’ve read mixed reviews about the canned version, but I enjoyed the draught version quite a bit.

Outsider Bandit Scottish Smoked Ale
Outsider Brewing • Kofu, Yamanashi JP    IBU: 25     ABV: 5.0%     ★★★

I was empty-handed and the word “smoked” jumped off the sign at Outsider Brewing’s booth. Served by owner Mark Major himself, the smoke flavor of the small-batch special came through right away, making me want to chase it with some gouda and bread! The more I drank, the less pronounced the smokiness; I’m not sure if I just got used to it or it dissipated. But, I’m still saying “love it” for the first several smoky, malty goodness sips.

Cranberry Lager
Chateau Kamiya • Ushiku, Ibaraki JP    IBU: N/A     ABV: 3.0%     ★★★

By the time we made it to Chateau Kamiya’s booth, we were teetering on done; both full of beer and a little fuzzy. The Ibaraki-based brewery/winery/gardens offered a little palette cleanser in the form a seasonal 3% ABV Cranberry Lager. Light, tasty and a perfect break for what was still to come.

Shonan Lemongrass Hopper
Kumazawa Brewing • Chigasaki, Kanagawa  JP   IBU: N/A     ABV: 5.0%     ★★★

I have a soft spot for Kanagawa’s Shonan Beer thanks to the Orange IPA we enjoyed last fall in Osaka. The Lemongrass Hopper looked intriguing, infusing local ingredients into what I knew would be a good beer base. The lemongrass and wheat flavors really came through without being overpowering. A good penultimate beer for the day.

Breakside India Golden Ale
Breakside Brewery • Milwaukie, OR USA    IBU: 60     ABV: 8.1%     ★★★

Our last stop was a personal one—the booth of the aforementioned importer who turned us on to Yellow Ape in Osaka and let us know about this festival. Unfortunately, he was out and about when we stopped, but fortunately they still had beer! It seemed fitting to wrap up our day with some home cooking and Oregon’s Breakside Brewery’s IGA seemed the perfect end to a perfect day. Originally brewed as a partnership with Eugene, OR’s Ninkasi Brewing and typically a spring seasonal, this double IPA gets tropical notes from Mosaic, Eldorado and Chinook hops while balancing the piney notes without overpowering. The 8.1% ABV was officially the death knell for our day at the festival, but what a way to go!

Odds and Ends

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Squirrels

A few odds and ends from the last week.

Old-timey bicycle sighting

I was running through nearby Wakaba today when a man on an old-timey bicycle rode by. One of those with the big front wheel and the tiny back wheel. Sadly, he was wearing a t-shirt and khaki pants, not sporting a ditto suit and bowler hat.

Rice fields forever

Rice fields
Rice fields flooded as the growing season gets underway.

Paul McCartney could have modified the Beatles’ classic “Strawberry Fields Forever” if he’d been able to play his Tokyo shows last month. The rice fields are fully flooded all over Saitama as the growing season begins. It’s a throwback scene as farmers in straw hats tend to the fields from sun-up to sundown.

Letting nature take its course

Another neat scene on the main drag in our little part of Kawagoe last week. A bird set up its nest full of eggs in the awning over the middle of the sidewalk running in front of the shops. Instead of moving the nest or knocking it down, the shopkeeper taped some newspaper to the sidewalk under the nest to catch the droppings. The mama bird sat perched on the edge of the nest while person after person stopped to see what was up.

Weekend trip to Ōmiya

We popped over to Ōmiya, one of the busiest cities in Saitama Prefecture, over the weekend. The plan was to visit the city’s famous bonsai nurseries and hit up the Keyaki Hiroba Spring Beer Festival.

After a quick train ride, we walked the path to Hakawa Shrine. Statues and banners with squirrels are all over town. We quickly discovered the city’s love affair with the Ōmiya Ardija (Spanish for “squirrel”) soccer team, Ōmiya’s entry into the Japanese Professional Football League.

The shrine was originally established in 473 B.C. It was impressive as usual, but the surrounding grounds were the highlight. A pond is home to dozens of turtles, which swam and sunned alongside the pond, seemingly ignorant to the handful of gawking tourists.

Turtles
Turtles rock!

We had lunch from a stand in adjacent Ōmiya Koen, a large park with a soccer stadium (home to the Ardija), baseball stadium, velodrome and zoo. We ordered some veggie yakisoba and french fries and impressed the vendor enough that she complimented my Japanese! She was clearly lying, but it was a great confidence boost.

We only found one bonsai nursery, which was cool, but fell into one of Japan’s numerous dichotomies. The nursery didn’t allow photographs and charged 200 yen for admission to the main nursery. Now, if I could take photos, I’d pay 200 yen. But, if I can’t get in for photos, I’m fine with glancing at the free stuff.

The trees themselves are amazing. One looked like a 100-year-old maple tree, but only stood about 18 inches tall. The art and care that goes into creating the trees is something else.

Along the way, we stumbled on the Cartoon Art Museum. The small museum featured the cartoon art of Kitazawa Rakuten. Impressive, but with displays only in Japanese, it lent itself to a quick tour.

Coedo Brewery
Coedo Brewery, Kawagoe’s premier craft brewer, set up shop for the weekend at the Keyaki Hiroba Spring Beer Festival in Ōmiya.

Finally, we headed to the Saitama Super Arena for the Keyaki Hiroba Spring Beer Festival. Approximately 60 breweries from all over Japan, and a couple American breweries (including Oregon’s Rogue Ales) tapped their kegs for the weekend festival. It reminded me of the Oregon Brewers Festival on Portland’s waterfront, but in about a tenth of the space and with as many tents and people. Beer enthusiasts lined up shoulder to shoulder to partake in the best of Japan’s burgeoning craft brewing industry.

We tried Hokkaido Brewing’s Melon Wheat and Raspberry White ales as well as Market Brewing’s Mango Orange Ale and Hop Seduction Session IPA. All were great, especially on a day where temperatures entered the 90s for the first time this year.

Most of the breweries get their exposure at these types of festivals or in local supermarkets. The beer aisle at most grocery stores is still dominated by the “Big 3″—Kirin, Asahi and Sapporo. It’s great to see artisan brewing get some well-deserved attention.