Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Belgian Beer no.93: Owa

I can hear you say 'oh, a Japanese beer on a Belgian Beer site. She got it all wrong'. Well, ahem, actually I didn't :). Although I have to admit my first reaction was the same: they got it all wrong at the Bruxellensis Festival if now they are bringing Japanese beers to the Belgian Beer festivals.
What to do? We went to take a closer look, of course. And surprise, surprise Owa Japanese Beer is brewed in Belgium by Zinnebir. I mentioned Zinnebir when writing about Belgian Beer no.34. Now we got to try their exotic Japanese beer as well. All you expect from a Japanese beer: light, refreshing, Japanese.
Now this was a nice discovery indeed. I doubt you can find the beer in the shops though. So a visit to Zinnebir is in order!
2009-04-27
Update: as you can see in the comments, the Owa beer has slightly progressed from its unknown little status. It is now a regular on specialist beer shop/ beer bars lists and indeed plenty of Japanese restaurants offer it. I even received a while ago a request from a quite unique and high end Spanish restaurant who wanted to put this beer on its menu. I understand that is the case in the meantime, so all good in Owa-Land.

1 comment:

Finnish veggies said...

Dear Andreea,

Owa beer is stocked by Shilla, who supply Korean and Japanese foods:

http://www.shillaeurope.com/shop/about/

More on Leo Imai, the Japanese master brewer if Owa, here (in French):

http://www.dhnet.be/dhjournal/archives_det.phtml?id=839920

Shilla also have good value sake, if you are partial to other fermented hydrocarbons, too. For a brief entry on the shop (in Finnish), see our site on vegetarianism in Belgium:

http://kasviksena.vuodatus.net/blog/1931605

best regards,