Neil是2013年认识的第一位住东京陌生人啤迷,出发前想对当地craft beer状况找概念然后搜寻到了当时以blog形式运行的Tokyo Beer Drinker网站,就这样从陌生人变成每次到东京都会见面喝酒聊天的朋友,以下是近期和Neil的聊天概要:-(篇幅所限-分为上下篇)
When I moved to Japan in 2012 there wasn’t much of an English language online presence when it came to Japanese Craft Beer. I can think of one site but it was inactive and after trying to visit yet another bar they recommended that had closed down, I thought I should try to do something myself. Obviously even then, there were lots of people who wrote or posted about beer, but I think that is something that is a bit too subjective to have much impact. Unless you know the person and their taste, the recommendation of or warning to avoid a certain beer isn’t that helpful. There weren’t many places to drink craft beer in those days so the idea of making some kind of resource to tell people where those few bars that did serve craft beer were seemed achievable. But once the scene started to boom it became clear that there was no way I was going to be able to keep the site fully up to date so now the focus has shifted slightly towards more interesting places and away from trying to be comprehensive.
All the time! I’ve met some nice people who have reached out to me over the years and some people have been very generous when it came to buying me beers as a thank you for my site. But when I check the amount of people who are reading the posts but who don’t interact in any way it becomes a bit disheartening. I totally understand that nowadays everything has become devalued. We now live in a world where people expect music to be something they get for free for example, so I get it when people don’t use my donation button or even contact me to say thanks for the resource. But I think in the many years I have the PayPal donation button I’ve had not more than five donations. Obviously I don’t do it for the money, and have refused to put advertising on the site as I want it to be impartial, but although visiting bars is a lot of fun, it is a money and time intensive hobby, so sometimes when I visit a new brewery that I think is probably not going to be great just to put it on the site, I do wonder if I could be doing something more important instead!
Of course now there are A LOT more places! This seems like it would be a good thing, and I’d agree that mostly this is the case. Certainly Craft Beer has become a lot easier to drink. At the same time, I think there are many bars that don’t offer anything new or original or even offer something with a little bit of soul. With its increasing popularity, Craft Beer has become a viable business opportunity for some people, and when I visit a bar and the overwhelming impression I get is that I’m getting rinsed for my money it’s quite depressing. At the same time though, there are many wonderful little places who might not offer anything out of the ordinary when it comes to beer selection but offer loads of atmosphere and finding one of these places makes everything worthwhile. Over the last two years I’ve been slowly making my way to all of the cities, towns and villages that make up Tokyo, (there are a lot!), and it has taken me to some places I never would have been to otherwise and some very unique bars. In the past I think if somewhere was a ‘Craft Beer Bar’ that would be enough for people to head in its direction. Now I think there has to be a bit more passion or consideration in what they are offering. Quite a lot of the old places that seemed very exciting when I started writing the blog seem to have not moved with the times and are getting left behind.
Yes, as I mentioned above, there is an ongoing explosion of new bars and breweries. Even the pandemic and lockdown period didn’t really stop the wave of new places opening. It did kill off quite a few bars though, which is obviously a shame. But I think it’s a lot easier to survive if you’re offering something different. With this increase in new breweries and places, I think the awareness of Craft Beer is also growing. Many of the major breweries in Japan have ‘Craft’ beer lines now and I wish they weren’t allowed to use that language to describe their products but I think this is something that bothers me more than it bothers most people. Also at the moment the yen is very weak so I guess this means it’s not as easy to import things to Japan. Imports have always been an important part of the beer scene here but I wonder if the prices of imports might be affecting their popularity. One slight problem I have is Japanese breweries who seem to think they should sell their beers at import prices because they are the same kind of beer styles. I tend to avoid these breweries as they just seem to be taking the piss.
As for price, I think this is starting to become a problem. Not a problem for visitors due to the weak yen, but for people who live here, Craft Beer is becoming even more of a luxury than it was before. I don’t know if the bubble is going to burst soon, but it’s definitely becoming more difficult for me to afford and justify the prices some places are asking. Sure, maybe your brewery spent a lot of money on the image and the labels and the decor of the taproom so you charge a lot, but if the beer isn’t very good, you’re just going to be shooting yourself in the foot as people will wise up sooner or later.