Great Japan Beer Festival

Yesterday I went with some friends to the Great Japan Beer Festival in Yokohama. Microbrewers from around the world come to share their wares. There were some 120 beers to sample.

We paid 3600 Yen for a ticket. You can buy the tickets at the local minute mart. I went to the Lawson store and showed them the code we got off the internet. The guy behind the counter put all kinds of information into an ATM looking machine. I paid him some money, and I ended up with a ticket. Pretty cool.

We headed up to Yokohama via train and subway to Osanbashi Hall at the Yokohama International Passenger Terminal where the cruise boats dock. It is a huge, beautifully sculpted, organically shaped deck. Not sure how else to describe it. We got there a half an hour before they opened the doors and the line was already impressive. Before the doors opened the line grew over the hill, turned around, came back over the hill and around the corner. Apparently lots of people like beer in Japan. The first 1500 got a commemorative glass. All I really needed was something to hold beer in, so I wasn't too concerned, but we ended up getting the glasses.

We tried many different kinds of beers. Luckily, the glass is small and it took a while to get through the lines at the various booths. Otherwise, we may have found it hard to get back to the subway station... You would fill up at one booth and then get into a different line and wait while you drank the beer. By the time you got to the front, you had an empty glass to grab another sample with.

It was a good day.