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New Year's News

New Year's News

I have been sick since before Xmas, I have stayed home for almost two week. I am getting better and I hope to be better in time for work.


Friday, February 12, 2010

Suntory Beer Factory Tour

This past Thursday was a public holiday in Japan and our good friend Naoko-chan had a fantastic idea to take a factory tour. The Suntory Brewery in the outskirts of Tokyo has a nice, although simple, tour of their factory.




After meeting Naoko at Bubaigawara station, we hopped on the free shuttle to the factory. You can't see it in the picture, but everyone who came off this bus had rosy cheeks.


Our factory tour was in typical Japanese fashion. A young Japanese woman wearing a uniform (always black skirt, plain heeled shoes, jacket and scarf around the neck) with her hair pulled up carrying a microphone. The only thing missing was the flag.

The factory tour was well planned, so well planned it seemed almost fake. For a factory that is supposed to be the size of approximately 9 Tokyo Dome's, the portion that they showed us barely made up half a dome.


But all hullabaloo touring aside, the highlight of the tour is the beer. At the end of the tour they bring you to a cute little tasting room where you have about 15 minutes to down 3 glasses of beer and nibble on a bag of tasty snacks.

Thanks to a little research, I found out that on their website you could print a coupon that you could exchange for a free Suntory glass. Not knowing that you could use one coupon for up to four people... I printed off three coupons. And being the super nice person that I am, I gave them to two different groups of ladies who were sharing our table. The younger ladies (not pictured) gave me some beautiful postal stamps in appreciation. The older group of ladies (pictured) were also very appreciative, however they were more entertained by the fact that they kept spilling their glasses of beer (which they mixed with CC Lemon (lemon soda)). It was pretty funny to watch.

The tour was pleasant, but I still favor the Yebisu tasting room downtown more. Oh well... maybe next time I go there I will have to take some pictures for ya all too. Ja Ne!!

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