Craft Beer Spray, Oct. 19

There's a small hamburger place in Tenmonkan, called Dolphin Industries. They claim to be inspired by Southern California, and don't actually have real dolphin in their sandwiches. I've eaten there once; the food is ok, but pricey. They pride themselves on selling craft beers, but they're like $7 a glass, which is more than I want to pay for one beer.



Anyway, DI hosted the ill-named "Craft Beer Spray" at the Maruya Gardens department store on Oct. 19 and 20. Unfortunately, I had a full schedule on Saturday, so my only real option was to make sure I got there at 4:30 PM after my last class Friday afternoon. Things ran until 8 PM, but there wasn't much to do other than eat, drink and talk to friends. I was there on my own, and people mostly talking took up all the tables at the roof top garden. I have no idea how busy the event got, but there were maybe 20-30 people when I was there, and only a few of them were buying anything at any given moment.



A couple minutes after I took this photo, the wind knocked the boxes over, and no one bothered restacking them.



I got something that was labelled a "dark beer German import" from the DI table for 500 yen, but it didn't really taste German. It was lager-like and kind of disappointing. After that, I got the sampler from Hideji Brewing for 1000 yen (they're in Miyazaki, which is under 100 miles northeast of Kagoshima). It included two fruit beers, and two lagers. All four beers were sour, heavily hopped, and difficult to drink.

I debated trying the watermelon beer, or the mango IPA, but the alcohol was starting to hit me, and none of the food available looked good. I could have also gotten the 4-cup sampler from Shiroyama Hotel, which is always a good bet, but I can get that anytime. Instead I cut my losses and returned home. On the downside, I didn't like any of the beers I tried. On the upside, they all had big APV numbers, and I was pretty buzzed for the rest of the evening. Note to self - avoid Japanese fruit beers.