See below for previous entries in the Beer in Japan series:
Part 1 - Availability; Taste
Part 2 - Pseudo-beers; Pricing
Part 3 - Marketing; Uniqueness
Part 4 - More uniqueness
Beer Trivia
Beer cans on display in Japanese vending machines are typically ‘display models’ - that is, they’re empty and have a flat top with no ring pull or hole for drinking out of.
In ‘dodgy areas’ (rarely dodgy by western standards though), real empty cans are used but with their ring pulls in a vertical position (see photo above left) to show drunks the cans are empty, thus deterring them from breaking into the machines to steal them.
Evidence of what happens when machines with ‘display model’ cans are employed in such areas can be seen in the photo on the right, which I took in Osaka’s Tobita area.
As I mentioned in Beer In Japan - Part 2, the big four Japanese breweries have a monopoly on the domestic beer market.
The result is that prices are the same for every brand of beer of comparable quality, and beer prices are pretty much the same whichever shop you go to in Japan.
The same can be said of beer vending machines, and it seems that every machine sells cans at ¥300 a tall can, and ¥230 a small one.
However, recently I found possibly the only vending machine that sells Japanese beer at a lower price, ¥220 for a tallie and ¥170 for a shortie. Only problem is, the machine is located on the Shimonoseki-Busan ferry! (it seems that, as the majority of passengers are Korean, the prices are meant to reflect the price of beer in South Korea to make the beer more affordable)
In South East Asia it’s quite common for bars and restaurants to serve beer in a glass poured over ice (as is the custom with cider in the UK now). This seems like a bizarre idea at first, but when you actually experience it there it makes perfect sense in that climate. Despite Japan having similarly high summer humidity and temperatures however, this practice hasn’t yet made it to Japan.
As most people are aware, adding a slice of lime to a bottle of Corona transforms the taste of the beer from a watery brew made for American tastes, to something quite palatable. In Japan lemons are also sometimes used, but both lemons and limes are expensive. As a result, bottles of Corona sold in Japanese shops are now often sold with a sachet of lime juice attached to the neck in a bid to make the beer more popular here.
Japan has a number of beers that can best be described as ‘novelty beers’. These include kids’ beer, beer for pets and bilk - beer made from milk
European fruit beers available in Japan are sold with stickers on the bottles identifying them as happōshu. While they actually taste nothing like happōshu, their lower malt content than regular beer means that legally they are classified as happōshu for taxation purposes.
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on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Articles in English, Beer in Japan, Drinking in Japan.
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