"7-11 exclusive" beer - Grand Kirin - Japan 10/2014

I feel like I didn't actually do that much new and interesting on this trip to Japan, but I did take a bunch of photos of random weird stuff. One of those is Grand Kirin, a high-end beer that you can only get at Japanese 7-11's:

I'm not sure what "dip hop & aroma brewing" means. It comes in a funky bottle with a funky cap that's halfway between a regular beer bottle cap and a 1980's-vintage pull tab:

It tasted pretty good, although basically like a double strong version of Kirin. It was very malty. That's one thing I've noticed about the Japanese and beer - they love the flavor of malt. Every beer that tries to be premium advertises how malty it is. It's what they think good beer is supposed to be. And this one really is.

I will say that there's something about Japan that always temporarily turns me into a heavy beer drinker. Generally, their beers are just a lot more drinkable than ours - including our alleged imports from Japan! They're very clean and fresh tasting but they still have a lot more flavor (of malt, mostly) than our beers. And people drink them at all hours, everywhere - it's not necessarily weird to get on the train at 9AM and crack open a beer. (Though it does somewhat depend on the kind of train.)

Anyway, more random stuff soon!