Well I never!

It started with a tweet from business journo John West: where is local Sapporo lager brewed? I know that Asahi is brewed at Shepherd Neame in Kent; I noted more recently that cans of Kirin Ichiban come from Weihenstephaner in Bavaria, of all places; but Sapporo was not on my radar. And indeed has never featured on this blog. Asking around finally yielded an answer from local distributor David of Noreast: Europe's Sapporo is brewed at the Guinness brewery in Dublin. Cor!

As it happened I had a bottle in the fridge, so took it out to toast my new-found knowledge. Sapporo is a handsome deep gold colour. It smells boringly sweet, like a million other mass-produced ersatz pilsners. But the flavour does have something going for it. There's a classic central-European grassy hop bite, which was a very pleasant surprise. It also has the full and soft texture of a decent helles making it a lot more satisfying to drink than stereotypical dry and gassy mainstream Japanese-style lager. A decent crunch of malt husk finishes it off.

While I'm on the subject of Asian lager, I lunched in Arisu Korean barbecue on Capel Street recently (highly recommended) and was bemused to see they stocked imported Hite lager. I explored the beer of Korea in Seoul a couple of years prior to starting this blog and Hite wasn't a particularly fond memory, though neither were Cass or OB for that matter. Still, here it was: man up and give it a go. Straight from the bottle, of course.

On this occasion it reminded me a lot of Tiger: it has that horribly thick and estery banana flavour I always get from Singapore's flagship beer. It's barely tolerable when ice cold, but any degree of warmth at all turns it sickly and difficult, in a way that this sort of chugging lager shouldn't be. If you can't create the complexity of Sapporo, at least make it dry.

All of these macro meanderings were enough to guilt me into getting some proper Asian craft beer. That involved another tasty lunch, this time at Yamamori's restaurant on Ormond Quay. It has been far too long since I last tried any Kiuchi beers, which the chain imports into Ireland. The Hitachino Nest Lager was entirely new to me and happily fitted the theme of this post.

I was expecting something exceedingly average, but this it an absolute beaut. It's a plain yellow colour topped by a fine white foam, and at 5.5% ABV is a little stronger than the norm, but that's very much in its favour when it comes to accompanying food -- once again the body is wonderfully full and satisfying. The first sip provided a juicy burst of melon rind, turning to bitterer orange pith on the end. I don't know how this was done, but I suspect it may be down to the judicious addition of Sorachi Ace hops: enough to give it a very distinctive taste but without drowning the consumer in coconut oil. Amazingly, this bright and zingy flavour was still present even as my bottle was coming up hard on the stated best-before date. It's a robust little owl.

Given some of the rubbish that gets sold in Asian restaurants around here, and Yamamori's exclusive hold on Kiuchi, it's a shame Sapporo isn't more prevalent. Its weight would make it a much better counterbalance to spicy food, for one thing. I can understand why they don't sell it at Arisu, however, and I still wouldn't swap the Hitachino Lager for it.

Honorable alternative

Asahi Black seems to be one of those beers that's generally regarded in the UK as a paragon of mainstream quality. Over here we only get the pale one, contract brewed by Shepherd Neame in Kent, so when I noticed this in Brighton's Waitrose back in June, I snapped it up.

I'm glad I did too: it's lovely. A 5% ABV black lager it feels quite a bit stronger, having the big and slightly sticky body of quality export-strength stout. There are some very interesting smoke and burnt caramel notes as well, both in the aroma and on tasting. It finishes sweet and a little bit herbal with a touch of chocolatey grittiness.

I'd love to have a regular supply of this, and to see it in an oriental restaurant or two. And for anyone who thinks that using maize and/or rice in beer automatically makes it of poor quality -- get some of this into you.

Curry source

For my evening curry I thought I pick up another couple of bottles of cheap Asahi from the supermarket. There was none left when I got there, however (demonstrating the efficacy of our new restrictive off licence laws), so I plumped for a lager I'd not had in ages and never reviewed here: the legend that is Pilsner Urquell.

The original beer from Plzeň, an SABMiller brand these days, pours as golden and as fizzy as one might expect. Those very Czech hops stand up well against the hot and sour vindaloo sauce -- the sharp bitterness cutting through the spice with each mouthful. After eating it's even better, refreshing and cleansing the palate. Sitting over it a bit longer, a funny thing happens: as it warms, the malt comes out in the flavour profile. Of course, this sort of beer is meant to be served cold, but at temperatures approaching cellar, and beyond, it offers a wonderfully balanced experience, with the sweet porridgey grains enhanced with the Saaz sharpness.

Pilsner Urquell is a beer worth savouring and I'm glad there was no Asahi.

Little bit of politics

I’m sure the pints will be on the house wherever Dermot Ahern chooses to drink tonight. -- Twenty Major.

Today, as you're all no doubt aware, marks the coming into effect of the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2008. This knee-jerk piece of legislation was rushed through the Oireachtas at break-neck speed in June and early July. One of its main provisions, starting this evening, is to close all off licences at 10pm, as well as preventing mixed-use traders from selling booze before 10am. Yes, if you need some drink outside of these hours, then the on-trade is your only option.

For you see, scientifically speaking, the compound C₂H₅OH manifests in one of two forms: as either good alcohol or bad alcohol. Good alcohol is that sold in pubs run by the nation's publicans, whose close ties to our politicians, both local and national (inasmuch as such a distinction exists here) place them far above reproach. Good alcohol binds communities together and is the lifeblood of our all-important tourist industry. It is, for the most part, native Irish alcohol, though the clarets offered by your favourite sommelier are also rich in good alcohol.

Bad alcohol, conversely, is what the off-trade deals in. The more accessible the alcohol, the worse it is. So while a specialist off licence may be viewed with some suspicion (except when loading cases of barolo into the back of one's X5), the main font from which our social ills spring is the bad alcohol sold in supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol stations. This is where the rampaging mobs refuel their reservoirs of anti-social behaviour; here is the starting point for those who don't know when to stop. Bad alcohol is tearing the country apart and it's about time our esteemed representatives in Leinster House did something about it so we can enjoy our pints in peace without being hassled on the way home from the pub by yobs who, having filled up on cheap cans from the suburban petrol stations, have inexplicably travelled to the city centre to cause trouble. A breath test will show their bloodstreams to be saturated in bad alcohol -- one never finds such human filth in pubs. Our upstanding landlords wouldn't have it.

As well as restricting the temporal availability of bad alcohol, the Act allows for further restrictions on acquiring it: with an additional stroke of the Minister for Justice's Mont Blanc it will be illegal to accumulate or spend supermarket loyalty points on alcohol, for instance, and promotions which discount or give away alcohol when drink is purchased -- buy-one-get-one-half-price type offers -- are off the cards as well. Indeed, any off licence promotional activity which Dermo regards as "likely to encourage the consumption of intoxicating liquor to an excessive extent" is right out. (One of the Republic's two whiskey distilleries is in the Minister's constituency. I wonder how they're taking all this?)

So, to mark the occasion of the opening of this brave new front in the War on Bad Alcohol, I'm opening a beer I bought extremely cheaply in a supermarket, my eye drawn by the striking (though poorly spelled) promotional display. It's Asahi lager, brewed in the UK from unspecified ingredients, but I suspect it's no stranger to rice.

It's 5% ABV and almost completely tasteless, but quite smooth with it, slipping down very easily when ice cold. I could have another one no problem. And, at this price, another after that.

And then all that remains is to call a taxi, make my way to Temple Bar, throw up on the cobbles and start a fight outside a kebab shop. That's how it works, isn't it? Minister?

Dry Maoth

I'm a longtime fan of Mao, the Irish Asian restaurant chain (being Irish, the chain currently consists of just two branches in Ireland). They now sell their own brand of beer, made in Ireland by an anonymous brewer and featuring the Chairman hisself on the label (which also matches the upholstery -- see right).

My last run-in with restaurant-branded lager was in a Mexican place in Brum a couple of years ago and I wasn't impressed. Mao Beer is pretty good, however. It's overwhelmingly dry and malty with very little by way of aftertaste which gives one that palate-cleansing mineral water sensation I associate most with Fischer.

It's possible that Mao is supposed to taste like one of the common oriental lagers, like Asahi, in which case it fails miserably. But as Irish-Asian lagers go, this is far and away the front runner.

I wonder who makes it?