Late again with my post about July’s sake club selection – the August delivery arrived yesterday. At least I’d managed to try them all this time. Just this minute posted up the reviews.

All three were phenomenal sakes this time, all scoring 90 or more with one reaching 95!

The sake’s were from three different breweries in 3 different prefectures and all made with different rice varieties. But all were excellent.

Junmaikarakuchi Yauemon (純米辛口 弥右衛門) from Yaumeon Brewery in Fukushima Prefecture : 94 points.
Tenryou Tokubetsu Junmai Tobikiri (天領　特別純米　飛切り) from Tenryou Brewery in Gifu Prefecture : 90 points. They have an English website worth checking out…here.
And finally, my favourite:
Yoimai Ayakiku (よいまい綾菊) from Ayakiku Brewery in Kagawa Prefecture : 95 points.

An excellent selection from July, let’s hope the August batch are just as good.

After 14 years in the courts, the European Union’s top court has ruled that Anheuser-Busch InBev (the American brewery that makes the American version of Buweiser) cannot register “Budweiser” as a trademark in Europe.

This is because Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar have been making beer since the 13th century in the city of Budweis (now called Ceske Budejovice) and “Budweiser” actually means “From Budweis“. So it makes sense that they should have the rights to it.

It often takes European Courts 14 years to see the blatantly obvious, but they usually get there in the end.

Reviews:
Budejovicky Budvar Czech Premium Lager
Budweiser King of Beers

Previously I wrote a post about a group of wineries from Yamanashi prefecture travelling to the UK to promote Koshu Wines there, and also about my visits to Katsunuma (in Yamanashi prefecture), and some of the wineries there including Grace Winery.

Well, I’ve just read in the paper this morning that Koshu, as a wine variety, was registered with the International Organization of Vine and Wine this March. This is a requirement for the wine to be sold in Europe, and has opened the door to Japanese wineries to export Koshu wines to the “Old World”.

Initially Grace Wines have sent 2000 bottles of Grace Koshu Kayagatake and Grace Koshu Private Reserve to Britain, and plans are afoot for the Yamanashi Prefecture Wine Manufacturers Association to send 10,000 bottles (from five different wineries) this financial year.

I haven’t tried any Koshu wines from Grace Winery, but I have tried a few from other wineries in the area and, as with all wine varieties, there are good and bad, my favourite was the Adega D’Aruga Bosque 2006 from Katsunuma Winery.

Bit of a techie post today. In today’s newspaper there was an article about how a group of Japanese scientists have discovered that soaking a special type of iron in red wine, sake or beer makes it a superconductor (a superconductor conducts electricity without resistance, i.e very fast).

The cool sounding Nano Frontier Materials Group at the National Institute for Materials Science in Ibaraki, Japan created an “iron telluride compound”, whatever that is, which was similar to a superconductor on a molecular level but didn’t show any of the special properties.

Leaving it on a desk for a week they came back to find it started showing superconductive properties. Probably due to moisture in the air they thought. So they experimented with water, ethanol and other stuff but got nowhere.
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