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