Event

When I first arrived in Japan, I was somewhat disappointed by the perceived paucity of decent beer selections. It seemed that no matter where I went I could find nothing more on draft than the near-identical brews of the ‘big 3’: Sapporo, Kirin, and Asahi. While these can be refreshing and are fine for cooling you down on the hot summer evenings, I still craved more. However, I soon found a burgeoning microbrewery movement that, in the last six months, in particular, has exploded with a new craft beer place opening seemingly every week. What is the Great Japan Beer Festival? Yes, craft beer (typically beer that is made by small or ‘micro’ breweries independent of the large brewing chains) has taken off in Japan in a big way, and nowhere is this more evident than at the Great Japan Beer Festival. Hosted by the Craft Beer Association (CBA) the Great Japan Beer Festival, also known as Beerfes, is Japan’s largest beer festival and has gone from strength to strength since its first outing in 1998, rapidly expanding from Tokyo to include events in Yokahama, Okinawa, Osaka, and Nagoya. The festival lasts for three and a half hours on each…