Beer Belly

For once, Russell and found ourselves with an open weekend. Saturday we cleaned up the house and then started looking for something interesting to do. Russell remembered that he had seen a blog about a microbrew place in Osaka. He suggested we go check it out.

This was actually a pretty significant find. We've been here for almost two years now, and while there are three major brands of pale ale on the market, we haven't really been able to find anything else. There are pubs with import beer (starting at $7 a pint and going up from there). There are also a few major brands that make a "dark beer," but if we really want good beer, we have to go home to Oregon.

The promise of an actual microbrewery was hard to pass up. We set out to find it. According to the blog, the actual brewery is in Minoh - kind of a suburb of Osaka. It is run by three sisters who were given the brewery by their father. They make very small batches but they really experiment with flavors, too (not just reproducing international favorites - though they do some of that, too.) The only problem is that this place is Very small batch, so you have to grab it while you can.

We were advised by the blog to skip the brewery and go to one of the pubs Minoh beer runs if we actually want to sample their beer. We looked online and found their two pubs - both called Beer Belly - right in downtown Osaka. In fact, we walked right by them when we went to the art museum a year ago. Russell and I headed back, now better informed.

The bar was small but cozy. The menu had a variety of beers from Minot and other local Japanese microbreweries. There were at least 14 beers on tap and at least 4 of them were stouts. There was a WIPA, a dark porter, a cabernet ale, a yuzu pale ale, and a number of others. Everything we tried was excellent - and not just because we were desperate. The food was good too. At some point I realized that there was malt vinegar on the bar, so of course we had to order french fries. We also got to watch the bartender grilling oysters for one customer and making fresh beer (stout) batter for fish and chips.

I'm kind of bummed that we don't live across the street from this place.

For more about the brewery, there is a really nice write up on this blog