Alternatives: On Top of the World but No Thanks to $7 Lite Beer

Sometimes a girl has to say 'no' to $7 lite beer. Even at the Getty Museum. So, on this edition of Lady and the Beer, One Woman presents to you, the $7 glass of mystery red wine courtesy of the Paul J. Getty Foundation. The wine was actually nice. Medium bodied, dark plum, and floral but not too sweet--I couldn't have asked for a better match for sipping out of a clear party cup, watching the sun set over the gorgeous gardens of the Getty with the Bomba Estéreo rockin' it on the stage above.

The Getty has a sweet series of free summer concerts called Saturdays Off the 405 (they should call it Saturdays Off the 405 if you can get on it in the first place.... omg! that freeway is so horrendously HORRENDOUSLY crowded--my bike commute to the Getty is 15-25 minutes. The drive was 1.5 hours. OMG.) One Woman was lucky enough to hitch a ride with the super couple, soon-to-be-wed A. and T. (congrats!!!!!!) to catch  Bomba Estéreo: 'Afro Colombian cumbia and champeta rhythms are deftly layered under surf guitar, keyboards, and bass beats.' It's a great combo of styles; so groovy, but still lighthearted at the same time. Check out their 2009 hit "Fuego" on their album, Blow Up (Nacional). Totally my summer jam.

Bar Food LA: The Neighborhood Bar

One Woman, one pair of shoes, one bike, and many, many buses have been busy rambling along the streets of Los Angeles. And, yes! it is possible to get around in this town without a car, and much less miserable than sitting in traffic for hours. In fact, I'm starting to believe that the reason I've fallen in love with this town is because being car free means avoiding all the things that piss people off about LA: freeways, parking, and traffic. (For those who have been following... yes, I did get a license; no I did not get rid of my fear of driving; no, I didn't acquire the will to possess an automobile either).

So, on the bus one day, I spotted Bar Food on Wilshire. Anywhere with sidewalk patio seating has an immediate charm in my mind, and so Bar Food drew me in. The Bar has the quaintness, the casual attitude, the cheap happy hour specials, and the open-to-all vibe of a friendly neighborhood bar. It also has the decor of a hip Thai Restaurant (kind of like the ones in the East Village or Williamsburg). Perhaps the particular neighborhood bordering Santa Monica and Brentwood has something to do with that, but I'm not sure.

But so what? One Woman loves that Bar Food has three house brews for $3.50 during happy hour (I'm told Firestone makes them--your choice of Amber, Pale, and Blond)! The pale ale that I had was very drinkable--beach bum tan color, typically pale ale hoppy green aroma, and a tiny bit of a smokey roasted poblano flavor--nice! As for food, besides the $0 hot dog, other low-cost happy bar bites will melt your thrifty heart too.  Finally, the sidewalk seating--little wooden patio furniture looks out onto quiznos, bagels, and sushi nestled between shiny new office buildings, and rush hour traffic zooms on by along on a busy street that opens up to a surprisingly big sky. And palm trees emerging from concrete. Of course.

If all that seems a little bizarre, there's also something comforting about this desert of the real, because you know it's only real if you think it is... or because you know it isn't. Yes, those are real fake boobs on the lady who just walked out of a cab wearing a tiny bikini and incredibly tall stiletto heels. 

Musical pairing: Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean" - so full of contradiction, allure, intrigue, and beauty (do you even care if it's not real?). 

An afternoon stroll

Series: Lager Love (part 4)--Awaken your Inner Superhero with Super "Dry"

With the release of Asahi Super Dry in 1987, an intense battle was waged between Asahi and Kirin beer companies. Seeing the popularity of Asahi, other major Big Four breweries also started making their own "dry" beers, only to reaffirm Asahi's success as the standard setting best "dry." Asahi cemented its victory as it overtook Kirin in sales, where kirin had previously dominated. Since then, Asahi Super Dry has been the number one best selling beer in Japan.

The sticker just lettin' you know it's No. 1...

 "Dry" is actually a type of lager, but one where the fermentation process has gone to near completion. This means that the beer is less sweet because the yeasts have eaten up all the sugars, and also lighter in taste, though slightly higher in alcohol. It's also less hopped (both in terms of flavor and aroma) during the brewing process. You might say, bland!! But that is so NOT the point of the dry. Let me try to explain.

Picture this: It's a really hot day, you've been walking around in the sun in your leather shoes and business suit all day. It's a scorcher. Life is tough. Your boss is a jerk. You're just a hardworking dude/chick. But at 6 p.m., you're finally at your favorite izakaya with a good friend. You are so hot. You order two nama--the super dry, please--clink glasses, and gulp it down so fast because you're convinced it's the best thing ever. You experience a sense of ecstasy as the beer gushes down your throat. Dry is a sensation, a feeling of replenishment, a rejuvenation that is so fresh that it's sublime. The superhero inside you emerges. Your cellphone rings. You are Angelina Jolie. You are Hugh Jackman.

Dry is an experience, not a drink.

Okay, so that is what the marketing is about. If you're not sure what this feels like: check out Asahi's visual approximation and you'll get more of the idea. Also, see Hugh Jackman on a mission here. Catch him if you can!

Not even breaking a sweat

Musical pairing: Johnny Rivers, "Secret Agent Man." Baby, you're so dry it's smooth. 
(N.B.: The reason that this Japanglish term "dry" doesn't work in American English is the reason that Bud Dry did not make it in the US)

Anyway, Super Dry is for the superhero slumbering deep inside us all.

Series - Lager Love (part 3): Relax Time in the Raw

The family.

Kawasaki, Japan.  Asahi's Jyukusen is one of Asahi's smaller-scale "premium" brews--like the Ebisu is to Sapporo. "Relax Time" is the slogan imprinted on its classy sepia toned label. Popping open the lid, I'm welcomed by that sexy whiff of hop, visible, if only for a moment, as a whisp of vapor escaping into outer space. The Jyukusen, like most Big Four lagers, is strong on European/German style hops, very aromatic without tasting too hop-heavy. Flavor wise, it's light but nicely balanced. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that despite it's "premium" label pomp, it's actually an adjunct beer (in addition to barley, it includes rice and 'starch' on the list of ingredients). But dare I say--it's quite a delicious adjunct beer. Not that it has huge flavor, or super robust body, but it smells lovely and fresh, and importantly, there's no weird sharpness or tangyness that tends to manifest in many adjunct beers. In the case of the Jyukusen, it seems like the adjuncts are actually there to craft this clean, yet slowly and elegantly matured beer. It's actually hard to come by a beer that is so light in flavor, yet so nicely balanced. The bitterness is on the bold side, but other than that, it's very non-obtrusive, yet subtle. It should make an excellent pairing with some crispy, salted grilled fish like mackerel or red snapper.

Anyway, if you want to pair a beer with Japanese food, maybe it's not so terrible to have a beer that has a bit of rice in it. One Woman loves Big Four beers with any form of rice cracker snackie.

But there's more to love about this beer--it's nama. Unlike American mass produced beers, the vast majority of the Big Four beers in Japan are sold unpasteurized whether it's in bottles, cans, or kegs (in the US, generally, only kegs are widely unpasteurized. US microbreweries do sell unpasteurized beers). In Japan, these unpasteurized beers are labeled "nama" (which means raw, or alive) or "draft" (a bit confusing, since, in English, draft refers to beer (usually unpasteurized) that's served from a keg.



Musical pairing: Asahi, in Japanese, means "sun rise." To complement that, here's husband and wife duo Les Paul and Mary Ford's with "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" ... in case you were in need of the ultimate musical lightness and effervescence in black and white. (Extra--two things I love about this video: the old school Listerine ad at the beginning, and the illustration of Les Paul's guitar which looks like a ukulele! Mahalo.)

Above, the Asahi Beer Hall designed by French architect Phillipe Starck
 

Series - Lager Love (part 2): The Freshness Factor

 Snackies, anyone? These saku-saku-salad crackers are so tasty. 

Shinkansen, Japan. Next time you drink a beer from a can or a bottle, see if you can find the date it was made. Freshness means a whole lot in the kinds of lagers sold by the Big Four (Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo, Suntory), and in many ways, it seems to be the reason that you can more of than not, you can count on the beers by these Japanese Big Beer Companies to be pretty tasty, or at the least, very drinkable. Maintaining control of the freshness seems to be a way to get by using cheaper ingredients. This was the case for the Kirin Lagers that This One Guy and One Woman had on the Shinkansen train on the way back to Tokyo.

Technically, the Kirin Lager is an Adjunct Lager, which means that in addition to your basic barley, hop, and water combo, there are other cheaper grains like rice, corn, and starch in the mix. These adjuncts are often found in mass produced beers, and the resulting taste is usually somewhat "cleaner" or thinner and a little less pleasant in aroma (aka pee-like), than a 100% barley beer.

But wait!

Ingredients are not the whole story. This Kirin Lager that This One Guy and I sipped on while crossing the coastal planes along the Tokaido route on the Shinkansen was not all that bad. Why? One big reason is probably because it was made within a couple of weeks. Flipping over the can of the Kirin Lagers, we saw that the beers had a date of manufacture printed on the bottom. Fresh from the factory to the shinkansen. It actually seems to be a pretty common practice around here, and it's hard to come by a Big Four Beer that's more than a month old. The question is, how much of the old beer goes to waste?? Big Beer, why are you so mysterious?

A still from NHK Minna no Doyou featuring "Hashire Cho-Tokkyu"

Musical Pairing - Yuasa Joji's "Hashire Cho-Tokkyu" (Run, Super Express!). When the Shinkansen went on its maiden voyage in anticipation of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, it was a big deal. The world's fastest train captured the hearts of many across Japan. One of Japan's eminent avant-garde composers, Yuasa Joji, was commissioned to write a song for the train. Among students and scholars of contemporary music, Yuasa is famous for his early forays into electronic music and graphic scores for his orchestral pieces, but in Japan, "Hashire Cho-Tokkyu" is by far the most famous of his tunes! Ask any Japanese person born before 1965, and they'll probably recognize the song. By the way, this doesn't make him a sell-out or anything. It's not uncommon for Japanese composers of contemporary, avant-garde, and experimental music to also write music for film, commercials, radio, music textbooks, amateur groups. I think that's kind of cool. Or, at least as good of an alternative to teaching species counterpoint to confused college students. Anyway, listen to the song. The linked version was recorded pretty recently by singer Horie Mitsuko and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. It is so catchy.

minipost: keeping it cool

blazing heat in nyc, steamy rain in tokyo. seriously, who wants thick, viscous high alcohol beers when you're trying to do everything to stay cool? yay for imbibe magazine and tracy howard (huffington post) for showing the path to 15 tasty low-alcohol brews!

Series - Lager Love: Big Beers of Japan (part 1)

 Above, everyone's favorite beer landmark / architectural failure in Tokyo. Pictured to the left is the headquarters of Asahi. The building on the right-hand side is the lovely Asahi Beer Hall, with its famous rooftop sculpture. It's also called Super Dry Hall along with other nicknames, like the「うんこビル」   (image adapted from boomin diary, http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/boomin3/diary/200703190000/)


Tokyo, Japan. Big Beer in Japan is full of wonders. One Woman is about to dedicate a series of posts to the Big Four breweries of Japan. Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo (includes Ebisu), and Suntory are really what you will find everywhere in Japan. I hope to share a few things that I love about Japanese beer and Japanese beer culture. Lager Love.

Nothing beats the post-hike beer <3

But wait--each of these is part of a dizzying array of multinational corporate webs that can seem pretty impersonal, sinister, or sublime, whatever your take is. Still, to dismiss these monster corporations as only Big Evil networks is also to overlook what exactly makes them so attractive, and so powerful to the point of no return (the hole is still unplugged!!). It also ignores the fact that these corporations--like any other kind of culture--all have fascinating histories and deep, dark secrets that directly affected (and were affected by) the lives of towns and railways, laws, drinking culture, national image, wars, and all that stuff. What's clear is that the history of beer as we know and love it today is inseparable from industrialization and capitalism since the mid-19th century.

The other reason that I want to write about the Big Four is that among some US drinkers of Japanese beers, there seems to be a misconception about these "imported" Japanese beers. Namely, that they are on par with the average big American adjunct beer (i.e., kind of nasty). One Woman wants to put such judgments into context. Of the Japanese beers consumed in the US, Sapporo and Asahi are brewed in Canada by Molson. Kirin is made in the Anheuser-Busch facilities in Torrance, California. So, no wonder they taste like Molson, Coors and Bud. Suntory beers are imported from Japan in the US, but do not enjoy the wide distribution that the other three do. Suntory beers also suffer from transatlantic travel.

Temple of Beer or Temple of Doom?

The other question is, are these even "Japanese" beers? For example--Suntory is a huge beverages-and- mo' company that makes Midori in Mexico, imports and produces Häagen-Dazs ice-cream in Japan, manages Scotland's Morrison Bowmore Distillers, produces and distributes PepsiCo's brands on the East Coast (US), and so on. Big business. And so, it brings me to the musical pairing of Lady Gaga – selected by a classroom of college students as an example of a practioner of "global," "universal," and "international"music. "Poker Face." Okay, fine, I admit, I also spent way too long watching MichellePhan becoming Lady Gaga on youtube today. "Just having fun, replicating her style," as Michelle puts it, in her sassy, silvery voice. This one too (Poker Face).

Alternatives: Banreki - Shochu and Secret Life of the Tengu

 (Tengu Conclave exterior – photo by r.)

Matsuyama – Ehime, Japan. In the books, this small town in Shikoku is famous for the satsuma and other juicy citrus fruits, and the Dogo Onsen hot springs, the relaxation-outpost of Japan's literary hero, Natsume Soseki. But others know it as a smokey yakitori town with some serious izakaya bar action--those who venture out at night through the shopping arcades in the entertainment district at night know that the kids and the tengu (that long-nosed trickster spirit of the mountains, pictured above) come out at night. It's also home to the local Dogo Beer, and One Woman was fully expecting to report on that. But the Dogo Beer was on the unimpressive side of things (there are three kinds: Kölsch, Alt, and stout), while the Banreki shochu was quite mind blowing, as was the whole experience at the izakaya, family run izakaya grill/bar, Tengu no Kakurega ("tengu conclave"). So, on this Alternatives issue of Lady and the Beer, I present to you, the Banreki toketsu-shu.

(A shot of Banreki – photo by r.)

Hailing from Kagoshima, the Banreki is a type of sweet potato shochu. Shochu (like the Korean soju) is a delicious, earthy, distilled liquor most often made with barley, sweet potato, or rice, but other times with sugarcane, chestnut, soba, whey, and other local ingredients. At around 25% ABV, it's higher in alcohol than most wines and beers, but not as strong as whiskey, vodka, and the likes. At 44.5% ABV, the Banreki is a toketsu-shu ("iced liquor") that is a shochu made by freezing the water off so that the aroma and the flavor have been condensed into a high-alcohol essence of shochu. O-m-g, an ultra shochu! It's also a way of preserving the raw shochu and the yeasts in it as soon as it's made, without pasteurization, or bottling, which change the flavor. The Banreki is also special because it's been fermented with an ambient, homegrown yeast. It feels both hot and cold on the tongue, and there's an explosion of flavor that hangs around. Like the name toketsu-shu might imply, the color is super clear, and the ripe red delicious fruity sweet potato flavor comes out brilliantly. It's kind of like the flavor analog of neon. Hyper real. Wow wow woW wOW WoooOOOow. Just like that.

(The conclave – photo by r.)

Song of the day: "Shikuramen no Kahori (tengu princess version)" by Natsukawa Rimi -- songstress from Okinawa, singing a sad song about a small-nosed princess tengu who had to leave the mountain when she turned 18. The original song, which was about white cyclamen flowers (and had nothing to do with small-nosed tengu), topped the pop charts in Japan in 1975. Here's the Shiku Akira's hit version (1975).