The Sapporo Beer Museum und Garten

Something that I really regretted missing out on during my last visit to Sapporo was the Sapporo Beer Museum. When we returned for the Snow Festival this month, I was determined to right this wrong. I was also determined to drink hell of delicious Sapporo Black straight off of the tap. Our course of action was clear.
The Beer Museum (the only one of its kind in Japan) is housed in what was once the factory of the Sapporo Sugar Company. Dating back to 1890, the building has now been designated a “Hokkaido Heritage” site.
These barrels displayed outside are replicas of the kegs that sat outside of the Sapporo brewery on its opening day, September 23, 1876. The text on the barrels reads “Barley and hops are fermented into so-called biru”.
Sections of the beer museum have a delightfully whimsical Disney-like ambience; really not at all unlike the fictional “Duff Gardens”. Here we see a number of little people illustrating the magic of beer brewing and consumption.

They also had a lot of old advertisements, cans and bottles on display, some dating as far back as the 19th century. Remember kids: drinking is cool and all but what’s even cooler is drinking and smoking.
In the hopes that Sapporo might be attempting to court the alternative-lifestyle market, Ryan decided to pitch a new can design with his smiling mug on it to the company. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem too interested.
You know, at the time, it seemed like a really good idea for Greg to pose with this $900 stein. No, wait. That was never a good idea.

Hey, do you want to play a game? Okay, here goes: below this text are two photographs. Can you guess which one is a photo of Sapporo’s first Chief Project Manager, Hisanari Murahashi, inspecting hops and which is a photo of an impostor?

Please email me if you would like to know the correct answer.
What better way to cap-off your trip to the beer museum than with a visit to the “Star Hall” tasting bar? Here you can sample many varieties of Sapporo, including Sapporo Classic, which is only available in Hokkaido. I'll have one of those giant beers please!
Sapporo Classic: good enough to make your hair stand on end? To tell you the truth, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the classic and the regular brew.
Next stop: the infamous Bier Garten, for all-you-can-eat “Genghis-Khan style” barbecued lamb and all you can drink Sapporo.
With the obligatory group kanpai photo out of the way, we were ready to consume enough food and drink to feed a small country.
You know, I was a little surprised, but the abundance of raw meat seemed to have awoken the inner Wisconsinite that had been lying dormant inside of Leo for so long. “GIT-R-DONE!”
With a few beers in our bellies and a few feet of snow on the ground, there was really no other way to end the evening than with a massive snowball battle through the streets of Sapporo.
Another locale worthy of mention is the Hundred Beer Bar. We had been hearing from a few people that there was a bar in Sapporo that served over a hundred beers so we saw it as our duty to check it out. Well, the bar, which is run by a fellow American ex-pat, makes good on it’s name with over a hundred imported beers from around the world. It also makes good on being in Japan by charging about $10 USD each for them. As much as I missed drinking good beer, I really couldn’t justify having more than a few brews here.
Seriously though, you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff this place had. For example, the Anchor Steam Christmas Ale…from 1998. How was it, you ask? About the same as the 1997 (which they also had).
So, in conclusion: is Sapporo truly an exception to the rule that in Japan, a good beer is hard to find? Absolutely.