For a bit of balance, and following on from our article on blue bees the other day, let’s take a look at the other end of apiological scale.

If those gentle, quiet blue bees were old ladies on trundling mamachari, then vespa mandarinia would be helicopter gunships.

For vespa mandarinia is the giant asian hornet, and if you’ve yet to meet one, believe me, that name is no exaggeration…

(if you’re in any way phobic, leave now)

The Mainichi Daily News recently reported that Kirin will soon start selling a beer with 7% alcohol called, appropriately enough, Strong Seven.

This is both good news and bad news for Japan’s beer drinkers. Good because it’s strong, bad because, well, it’s going to suck. Granted, I haven’t actually tried Strong Seven yet (it hits stores October 22) but I can bet you it’ll taste like crap. Why? Because every Japanese beer priced below the top tier varieties (Asahi Super Dry, Yebisu, etc.—essentially the stuff you can get overseas) is undrinkable.

Strong Seven is classified as a third-category beer. According to Wikipedia, Japanese beer has three categories, largely based on the amount of malt used. The first, which is called simply “beer,” is the good stuff. What you would probably drink if you weren’t homeless or had no taste buds. Drinks in the second category, called happoshu, contain less than 67% malt. The remaining ingredients are made up of things like corn, rice, sorghum, and potato. Really. Lastly, there’s the third category, which is where our Strong Seven falls. Wikipedia says,

Since 2004, Japanese breweries have produced even lower taxed, non-malt brews made from soybeans and other ingredients which do not fit the classifications for beer or happoshu.

Soybeans? Mmm, yummy. The price of 141 yen per 350ml can and 197 yen for a 500ml can reflects this. (To compare, a 350ml can of Asahi Super Dry is more like 200 yen.)

Mainichi says that Kirin is bypassing the younger people that have been buying diet and light drinks lately and going straight for male beer drinkers aged 30-50. Get the job done without a lot of money drinkers. First beer at 7am on the morning train drinkers. Passed out in the park at noon drinkers. Alcoholics.

I’ll stick with Yebisu, thanks.

Here’s a trilogy of videos on Japanese beer – one on beer vending machines in Kyoto, another one on a draft beer vending machine in Tokyo, and a final one on historical beers – beers with labels of famous people in Japanese history with short bios.

This first video is from BusanKevin in Kyoto talking about the wonders of outdoor beer vending machines in Kyoto on a hot day:

In response, I did a video on a draft beer vending machine I discovered in a pool hall in Tokyo a few nights ago.

Taste was not too bad but it gave me a huge head of foam which is quite common anyway even with live servers:

Background music by Super Girl Juice.

Later that same night I came across some “Historalicious” Japanese beer which were beer bottles with labels depicting famous people from Japanese history. Get your drink on while learning some Japanese history with Historalicious Japanese Beer – if you can read the bloody small cursive writing on the label:

Crack open a cold one and enjoy the Japanese Beer Trilogy!

If you are planning to visit Japan during the summer season, something I actually do not recommend, I advise you to visit some of the many matsuri (祭). These festivals are celebrated with drinking, a lot of different foods, sometimes games and many of these Japanese festivals have a big fireworks show.

One of these festivals is Osaka’s ‘Yodogawa festival’. Yodogawa is Osaka’s biggest river, and as the name of the matsuri already gives away, the festival takes place on the Yodogawa riverbanks. Especially with this summerheat a splendid location. The Yodogawa fireworks show is probably one of the most popular fireworks show in Japan and definitely draws one of the largest crowds. I’m talking thousands of people, the place gets really packed. If you are not into large crowds I suggest you watch the fireworks from the Umeda Skyline building, but you’ll really miss the great atmosphere.

Since the fireworks are on the river, you’ll have a good chance to view the spectacle from both sides of the river, I do advise you to come in early for a good spot.

The result:

Just some small advice from me if you intend to visit the next Yodogawa matsuri:

- Come in early, I don’t mean 10 minutes before the start, but at least 5 hours. This will guarantee you a great spot for the show. (If you decide to watch the show from the riverbank that is).
- Bring a large plastic or cloth sheet to sit on.
- Bring food and drinks. Even though you can buy lots of oishii food and drinks at the festival, be prepared to wait in line for 10 to 20 minutes before getting served.
- Bring umbrella’s in case of rain. (This unfortunately can happen and has happened last night. We shared 1 umbrella with 4 people, didn’t ruin the show though)
- Go to the toilet beforehand. (Same as the foodstands, the waiting line for a toilet is around 10 minutes, if you have to do the big one expect to wait in line for over 20 minutes.

Of course, even without these preparations you can still enjoy though.

The temperature in my house was over 30 when I awoke, sweating and fully unrested at 7.30 this morning. We’re in for a warm one.

And if ice cream is too fattening, and solace can’t be found in only-good-for-one-glass Japanese beer, what respite is there?

One recommended way of dealing with the oppressive summer is apparently to eat unagi - eel. Eel has been marketed for centuries as a stamina food, a remedy to the sapping heat.

CScout Japan reports on a new ‘black beer’ from Miyashita Brewery, that purports to be the perfect companion to an eel supper. Not sure I’ll be trying it myself, as the brewery describes the beer as “sweet and fragrant”, but perhaps you might. (Though I particularly liked the exhortation that, translated, claims eel and black beer is “new common sense!”)

If you want to take it a step further (and if you’ve come this far, then why not?) you might actually like some eel in your drink. Check out CScout’s whole post for details.

Found at a pet shop the other day, sparkling wine for pooches.

The woman in the store confided in me that they do not sell much of the stuff.

I used to be pretty amazed to see golfers in Japan imbibing beer, sake, shochu, and whiskey early in the morning before venturing out onto the golf course, but at least the tipplers were getting some exercise in the open air.

But now the latest thing in Tokyo seems to be golf bars, which let you enjoy bashing golf balls without all of the troublesome stuff like walking and going outside.

My swing is so bad I look like a caveman killing his lunch.
– Lee Trevino

A Tokyo trucker, Masahiro Fujiwara, 47, has been arrested on charges of counterfeiting after using a colour photocopier to produce about 10 ¥10,000 notes.

His plan was to replace the bills in his wife’s purse with the fake ones, and go out drinking.

His wife, of course, had no notion that the money in her purse was fake, and spent two of the bills later. Which is when the fireworks started.

He reluctantly turned himself in to police after he was grilled by his wife, who suspected that the bills in her purse were fake, according to investigators.

Ah, the image that that sentence conjures up…

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has issued a report saying that smokers who drink two or more 180 milliliter servings of sake per day are 1.7 times more likely to develop lung cancer than smokers who drink only occasionally.

The survey found that smokers in the groups who drank two to three 180 milliliter servings or at least three 180 milliliter servings per day were 1.7 times more likely to develop lung cancer than smokers who drank less. The results showed that the more smokers drank, the high the cancer rate was.

The research team suspects that the alcohol-degrading enzymes increased the activity of carcinogens contained in cigarette smoke. The rate of developing cancer was about 1.6 times higher in the group of people who hardly ever drank compared with the group who drank occasionally, but it was thought that the non-drinkers included people who had originally had a high risk of developing lung cancer and had to give up drinking.”

It’s beer for astronauts, and Sapporo is going to brew it with barely grown in space (or at least from the lineage of space barley).

So Sapporo is going to brew about 100 bottles of the stuff which will only be available to astronauts on the space station.

The question is will NASA allow them to drink it?

And what does a hangover feel like at 0 gravity?