Nowadays, in Japan, beer has become a common beverage that Japanese loves. We could find it everywhere, in convenience stores, in vending machines and in restaurants. But based on Japanese law, it is prohibited to consume alcoholic beverages if you are under 20 years old.
[caption caption="Yebisu Garden Place"][/caption]
We decided to visit Museum of Yebisu Beer to learn about beer brewing history in Japan. We took JR Yamanote Line to Ebisu station and walked to Pavilion of Yebisu Garden Place. This site was named that way because Yebisu Beer Brewery was founded in 1987 in this area. You can enjoy a German-style garden and restaurants here if you have free time.
[caption caption="Yebisu Beer Museum"]
Yebisu Beer Museum opens at 11.00 AM. As always, it was opened on time and we didn’t have to pay admission fee. Yeah, it is free! Except if you take a 40-minutes tour that costs 500 yen for adult (include beer tasting), a brand communicator (Yebisu expert) who will explain about the history of Yebisu and there are areas that only tour visitors can enter such as tour lounge and communication stage.
Maybe you get confused by asking ‘is there any typo here between Yebisu Beer and Ebisu Station?’ Sounds quite same, right? Because Yebisu Beer was really famous, it later became name of train station and district. Before World War II, Japanese language had Ye (ゑ) as one of the alphabets. But after World War II passed, it was reformed. Ye (ゑ) was erased from alphabet list and E (え) was used to replace Ye (ゑ) until now. But why does Yebisu Beer still use Ye as their brand, not E? They said that there was a history behind the name and they wouldn’t let it be vanished.
[caption caption="Ebisu Statue"]
In front of Yebisu Beer Museum, you’ll see a super big can of Yebisu Beer and we are sure that you won’t miss the logo which is Ebisu God. This God is one of Seven Gods of good luck (shichi fukujin) that protects fishermen, luck, business prosperity and fair dealing. He is usually described as a man that holds a fishing rod and a red sea bream. In Japan, fish is a mark of good luck.
If you would like to take a tour, you may go to tour counter. Five minutes before the tour is started, please go to the tour lounge and brand communicator will meet you there. We didn’t take any tour so we directly went to Yebisu gallery.
[caption caption="Yebisu Beer"]
As told before, Yebisu Beer Company was founded in 1887. At that time, Japanese brought Germanbrewmasters to teach them how to make beer in German-brewing methods. Finally after three years (1890), Yebisu Beer was born and gave a higher quality than beer in other areas. It even won a Gold Prize in Paris Expo (1900) and Grand Prix in St. Louis Expo (1904). At that time, beer was an expensive stuff. For comparison, in 1904, beer was sold at20 cents (100 cents = 1 yen) and a bowl of noodle was sold at 2 cents. It means 10 times higher but it could reach its popularity and became extremely successful until 1937.
