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This article is part of our series on the 17 most unique things to have come out of Japan. Check out the other 16.
A brilliant brewer in Hokkaido has created an actual blue beer. We’re not talking brown beer with a blueish tint only visible with binoculars. But bluer-than-blueberries kind of blue.
The shade comes from two sources: local flowers and seaweed. Plus, for good measure, there’s a casual dash of water from melted icebergs, off the Sea of Okhotsk. Chinese yam has been added to create the beer's head — according to the beer’s page on Firebox.com, it “resembles floating ice”. "To sip this beautiful blue brew is to immerse yourself in the wild and colourful flavours of the frozen Abashiri coastline," the page states.
The brewery behind this innovation is Abashiri. It made headlines back in 2007 with the creation of BILK. As the name suggests, it’s a combination of beer and milk, which is low in malt and tastes quite fruity. BILK was invented when a bunch of nearby dairy farms ended up with too much milk and were planning on throwing it all out. After the son of a local bottle shop manager heard this, he approached the folks at Abashiri, suggesting that they consider using the milk in the brewing process.
Abashiri Blue Beer has been around for a few years, but only became available outside of Japan last year.