B.E.E.R.S. in Tokyo

Sooner or later everyone who writes about beer is asked one of two questions; ”What’s your favourite beer?” or ”How did you get into beer?” (the usual responses being ‘I can’t say’ and ‘I can’t remember’). The first question is tricky because it changes on a weekly – or if you’re particularly dedicated – daily basis. The second is tough because these moments of conversion are often lost in the muddled mists of time. However, they can resurface when a trigger presents itself – the return to a favourite pub, re-acquaintance with a beer fan who’d taken you under their wing – or in my case, a particular beer.

I don’t think I’ve ever answered the first of those questions above with Green Flash IPA, from the Green Flash Brewery in San Diego. That’s not to say it isn’t a great beer – it really is – but that I usually forget it’s importance in my beer journey when compared with notable stepping stones such as McEwan’s 80/- (the first non-lager I drank regularly), or Harviestoun’s Bitter & Twisted (when I realised there was a nicer alternative). I saw a bottle of Green Flash IPA in my local Edinburgh bottle shop the other day, and straight away it brought back memories of a chilly night in Tokyo, and nine strong IPA’s…

In October 2007 I was on holiday in Japan and just beginning to appreciate the depth and range of flavours available in craft beer. Five minutes wandering around the Tanakaya store in Mejiro brought home the Japanese attitude, with its astonishing selection and underground, secretive feel. Keen to find out more, I had discovered a Tokyo-based tasting group – the wonderfully named ’Beer Enjoyment, Education and Research Society’ (B.E.E.R.S.) chaired by a Canadian ex-pat named Tim Eustace, so I signed up. The society met on the third Tuesday of the month – so on the 16th I nervously made my way into a college room in Nihonbashi, and prepared for ‘IPA night’.

Of course, with hindsight I was totally unprepared for what happened next. In a room filled with an even mix of young Tokyo-ites and older westerners we polished off one strong beer after another over the course of a couple of hours. Each one was mightier than the last, and I frantically scribbled notes as my tastebuds struggled to keep up with the hop overload that my mouth was experiencing. I remember having brought Tim a bottle of Bitter & Twisted as a gift (all the way from Scotland), then being almost scared to hand it over following the onslaught of flavours we’d been through. Nonsense, of course – B&T is outstanding – but by that point I’d had nine beers over 6% and the grey matter had taken something of a pounding.

I still have those notes I made, hastily written on the back of a sheet of A4 filled with Japanese phrases I thought might be useful – Mo ichido itte kudasai: “Please say it again?”. The first beers we tried were from Japan – Shiga Kogen IPA from Nagano and Ise Kadoya IPA, at 6% and 7% respectively. Both were extremely good – ’really hoppy, dries the mouth out’ was my considered opinion of the latter. Moving on to American beers, we moved through North Coast Brewing’s ACME (’grapefruit…citrus’) and Full Sail IPA from Oregon – which I summed up with the tremendous oxymoron ’subtle…delicate…lots of hops’ – to the ’has everything’ Stone IPA, a comment I stand by to this day.

There was a short break at this point, which I filled by chatting to the two Japanese girls I had found myself next to, and trying not to fall over. This was very definitely my road to Damascus moment – the point at which I discovered the sheer joy of drinking rich, flavourful beer instead of tasteless mass-produced bilge. You can never go back. When Tim stood up and announced we were moving on to Imperial IPA’s – “well, bring it on” I thought. Hair of the Dog Blue Dot Double IPA (7%), Dogfish Head 90min IPA (9%) and Moylan’s Hopsickle IPA (9.2%) hammered the point home, one after the other. I described the Hopsickle as ’Bloody hell. Floaty, dark. Strong. Major. Triple hopped! Food pairing – blue cheese! (food pairings also being unheard of – aside from a packet of dry roasted).

The final beer of the night was something of a palate cleanser compared to the full-frontal assault of Moylan’s dark, floaty monster. It was of course, the aforementioned Green Flash IPA, which I scrawled as ’pine fresh. Nice for a last beer’ at the very bottom corner of the bit of paper. Then that was it – the B.E.E.R.S. club dispersed, I gave Tim my thanks – and the bottle of Bitter & Twisted – then stumbled off into the dark forgetting where I was. Eventually I made it back to where I was staying, and once the hangover had stopped shredding my brain I realised normal beer just wasn’t going to cut it any more. And so, several years later when standing in front of a beer fridge in an Edinburgh off-licence, I suddenly remembered the answer to the question ”How did you get into beer?”. An October night in Tokyo…