Sapporo Beer Museum, Sapporo

Sapporo Beer - the oldest beer brand in Japan since 1876

Yea it's a touristy thing that we must do when one is in Sapporo. All travels and trips for Notti Monkey must revolve around FOOD and BEVERAGES. It would be better if the beverages contain alcohol. Hahahahaha. Alcohol makes ppl happy and most of all it kills bacteria. Water carries bacteria so please go ahead and have more alcohol. *hic*

The side facade of Sapporo Beer Museum, the only beer museum in Japan was only recently opened in 1987. Originally this building was constructed in 1890 by foreign architects and engineers as a factory for Sapporo Sugar company until the demand for japanese sugar declined *thanks to cheaper Taiwanese sugar*. In 1903 Sapporo Beer purchased this building as their manufacturing plant. It operated until 1965 before the whole plant was transferred to Eniwa.


Today it is a very important cultural heritage from the Meiji Era and has been selected to receive the status of Hokkaido Heritage. Only certain deserving assets which are meant to be preserved and passed on to the next generation as treasures can receive this status, so it is a very honorable one.

JS said this way to the museum!!!

We were so ambitious and wanted to do the real tourist thingy and thought of catching some loop bus to get here. You see the loop bus is something like a hop on hop off bus that go through the sights and shoppings in the city. But....we ended up hopping into a cab. We failed lar....JS said taxi is much easier...no time wasted...and so much so we are now planning to cycle around in Provence, France next month. I think that would be a failed project too bcoz I have a feeling in the end we gonna hire a chauffer with a limo to go around the villages.

-_-"  right JS?

Poser!!!!

it's just that I have this habit...whenever I see a seat or seats or couch or chairs or benches or stools....basically anything that I can lay my big bums on, that would be it. Even if it means only for a few seconds. Guess I will make a good participant or sample size to test chairs before they go on production. Monkey can give reviews on its ergonomic design, comfort, heights etc

Every history has its beginning of inception, date/year, founder, why, how, where

For Sapporo Beer it's even more important because it also marks the birth of Beer Brewery in Japan. Yeap it's that dramatic!! hahahaha. Started by Mr. Seibei Nakagawa, who studied the art of brewery in Germany from the largest brewery in the world at that time, he came back with vast knowledge and experience. Nakagawa-san also personally oversaw the planning and construction of this brewery. Being a perfectionist and a great master, he also headed the procurement of machineries....selected all the fine ingredients for his beer and finally the packaging, marketing and advertising. Basically from the barleys and hops to the iced cold beer in the bottle. Wow!!!


A walk through their history timeline~~~ but it's all in Japanese.

Do u know that beer is such an old beverage in the world that even the Code of Hammurabi has it??? on regulations and laws about consuming this beverage. If you are in Louvre Museum Paris, you should look for the famous black stone with the Code of Hammurabi. I was surprised that it's so big and tall, about 7.4 feet.


The main ingredients in beer - barley.
Didn't our moms alwiz said drink more barley water...so this is it!!! this has to be it!!!!


sou des neh....this is how Hops looked like. There was even a canister of hops for us to touch and nose. Hops add bitterness to the beer and also act as a natural preservatives.


a photo-op corner...and so we were here on 1st August 2014. That's like more than a month ago. Gosh I am so lagging behind my postings...ok ok note to self.

the huge Wort Kettle made from copper. This is the boiling stage where hops are added. Usually boiled for an hour to release the bitterness from the hops. The longer it's boiled the more bitter it is but then the flavour of the hops is less distinctive so it all depends on style and what the brewery wants to achieve in terms of flavour.

a collection of really old bottles throughout the years from 1878 to 1908

There is a cute miniature animation on the entire process of beer brewery.
First the hops plant and barley, it's all headed like jack and the beanstalk towards the heaven bcoz finest ingredients are the gifts from the higher above to Earth.

Then the barley are roasted, the mashing process to convert starches to sugar. Then hops are added before it's further boiled inside the wort. After all the boiling in numerous stages to remove water through condensation, yeast are also added.

after the boiling and heat work it's now the filtering process and into the cask!!!!

But the happiest part would be consumption of all the hardwork. Look at that that. I wished I could climb the red ladder and dive into all those iced cold beer.

Wooohooo!!! eppy moment for me too. Summer also marks the Beer Festival in Sapporo so we were just in at the right time.

not forgeting the supply chain of delivering the beers worldwide, of coz these days we dun use horses donkeys and sampans....tee hee hee.

the beer bottle caps over the years.

The ad campaigns over the years!!!! wow it's like a walk down memory lanes.

The Communication Corner, usually used by Marketing and PR person

that would be my dream job...to work in the PR department of champagnes house or wineries. To be able to speak breathe and drink something you so passionate about to your privileged visitors, private collectors and international medias. I think the job isn't as easy just taking your guests on private cellar tour and then pop open a bottle at the end of the day isn't it?

Read about her dream job here at KRUG champagne house. This is the kind of job I want now. *Click here to read*

the proud growers of barleys in Japan

Today Sapporo Beers are sold worldwide with a few manufacturing plants. 5 in Japan and 1 in America.

If u are driving and under 20 years old, no beer for you.

JS can't decide which tasting we wanna do....Monkey suggested all top 3 but he was much busier choosing which roasted nuts to go with his beers. -_-"

I think we should start with the black label...no?

Liquid gold.....yumsssss
gosh looking at these pic made me so thirsty.

I wished I could swim in beer!!!!

The huge Star Hall for tasting. By the way the entrance to the museum is FREE. There's  lil museum shop at the corner of this hall and the best purchase would be some Beer Jelly to be brought home as souvenirs.

After quenching our thirst, we went out around the factory museum for a short walk. Nope that ain't our bicycle hahahaha.

The famous tall chimney which u could see from afar.


at the museum's garden there's some barley plants

and hops!!! finally I've seen, touched and smelled hops
:)))))))))

Opposite the museums there's a Sapporo Biergarten to enjoy some fresh draft beer with the famous genghis khan BBQ mutton called jingsukan in japanese.

It was an educational visit for both of us and we look forward for more. To read more about Sapporo Beer, please visit their website here:
http://sapporobeer.com/
Opening hours: 10.30am to 6.30pm
Closed on Mondays

Mt Moiwa, Sapporo

Japanese refer this as StreetCar and not trams. Watever it's called, we are glad that this is one of the efficient public transport available. Streetcars usually go either in loops or 2 ways left and right, north south or east west. So it's really easy to board one and you pay upon your destination, there's a screen on top of the driver which states the exact fare that you need to pay.

To get to the foot of Mount Moiwa, get onto the one and only streetcar system in Sapporo from Susukino. It's quite a slow gentle ride, about 25 minutes to Ropeway Iriguchi Station.

Once at the station, cross the road to the FREE shuttle bus service to the ropeway station. Yeah Japanese refer it as ropeway and not cablecars. Hahahahaha.

Anyway it's just a 5 minutes walk and up we went on the slope to Mount Moiwa Ropeway station. It's just so much faster to walk than to wait for the bus and there was already a queue waiting for this mini bus. We didn't wanna miss the sunset and there's a schedule for their ropeways.

Again both JS and Monkey were so lucky to be on time to catch the ropeway....just a nick of 2 minutes. Hahahaha if we missed it, we gotta wait another 15 minutes and 15 minutes is long if u don't wanna miss the sunset!!!!

Arigato Gozaimasu~~~~~
Japanese are really polite people with great hospitality.

up up and away...first thing we saw were cemeteries hahahahaha.
From the lights, u could see dusk is falling. Quick Quick!!! there's 2 types of ropeway we needed to take to get to the summit of Mount Moiwa

As we were ascending, another ropeway was heading down. Its conductor was waving good bye to us while its passengers were bz immersed in the stunning view of Sapporo

I'm not a fan of heights, so the short ride was still pretty scary. Once at the first station, we gotta alight to board another mini cable car to go all the way to the top.

Soon the city of Sapporo bcame small tiny lego bricks and we could see the Sea of Japan far on its horizon!!!!

kiasu JS quickly set up his camera on the best spot for sunset while Monkey went to fetch drinks from one of those really "Canggih" machines. Japanese and their automated machines hahaha.

By the time I've walked back with my drinks, a small group of people already surrounded JS. All hoping to get the same shots with their mobile phones. Sigh...it's not the same...u people won't be able to get this...not even my very phone iPhone. If everyone could capture this with their mobile phones then brands like Leica, Canon, Nikon etc would need to "gulung tikar"

Such a stunning sunset  it could even look like sunrise. Hahahahahaha
Yea we came all the way up here just for a sunset. It has become our to-do list everytime we travel. Afterall sunsets are so much easier to catch than sunrise. Gah!!! when we were in Hokkaido the sun rises at 4am. It's just too freaking early!!!

as it was slowly setting the very last bit, a bird had to fly across
-_-"

and finally bye bye for the day, see you tomorrow on the other side ok Mr. Sunshine?

Mount Moiwa has got a beautiful Ski Resorts too. I guess everywhere in Hokkaido whenever there's mountains there's ski resorts.

We then dashed to the other side to check out the lights popping up the skyline of Sapporo. Being in the Ring of Fire, Japan can't really build tall buildings, and nope...this time around at our visit there isn't any tremor nor earthquake. Thank gawd. I've experienced a few tremors before in Malaysia but nothing of this scale in Japan which woke me up from my deep slumber.

The mascot for Mount Moiwa...couldn't find his/her name...Japanese lurve mascots Almost every city has got their very own mascot and the most popular one has to be Kumamon the black bear with red cheeks for the city of Kumamoto.

At the top of the outdoor observatory, there is a bell which you could ring for eternal happiness. There is a building here with some souvenir shops and restaurants and a cafe. Do come here for sunset and when the nite falls upon Sapporo bcoz it's especially beautiful after sunset