Ebisu: The Town Named After a Beer

Residents of Tokyo and visitors might now know of Ebisu as the hip little grown-up enclave next to crazy Shibuya. But actually, 100 years ago, Ebisu was a pretty open land, where a bunch of dudes decided they wanted to create some German style brews. Fast forward a few decades, their beer became so famous (including a grand prix at the 1904 World's Fair, ahead of both European and American beers) that they needed to build a railroad station to ship their goods. The town was then named after the train station, which was named after the beer. They even created a god of business, Ebisu-sama. That's powerful.

(photo by r.)

One Woman and This One Guy took a trip to the headquarters of Ebisu/Sapporo beer, and sampled some tasty sips of fresh Ebisu Beer (lager) and Creamy Top Stout - "what a creamy taste." Indeed. The Ebisu is a lovely golden wheat color, silky smooth, with tiny perfect bubbles on top (thanks to high-tech tapping technology: one tip for the beer, switch to a specially designed tip to create the head). Really nicely balanced malt and hops and a little bit of young hop taste make this a great beer for lightly flavored Japanese food and other rice/veg/fish/tofu based meals. Yum!! 

(photo by r.)

Here's the Ebisu song. This catchy tune plays every time the JR train stops Ebisu station.

Stay tuned for more beers from around Japan. Gotta go now! One Woman and This One Guy have a Shinkansen to catch!