Fake Beer

Next time you wander into your local convenient store in Tokyo to pick up some cans you need to be careful. Because what may look like beer and some might say even taste like beer (not in this writers opinion though) is actually not beer at all, but what the Japanese refer to as near beer. Near beer is the result of the weird Japanese tax system that levies different tax rates dependant on the ingredients, production methods and alcohol content of alcoholic drinks. It all stared in the late 1990s when Japan's four major breweries (Sapporo, Kirin, Asahi and Suntory) introduced a selection of low malt beers called Happoshu or sparkling malt beer in order to get around the government's strict regulations that require a certain level of malt content for something to be labelled as beer and consequently highly taxed. This rule helped keep consumer prices high and company profits low.
The introduction of cheap Happoshu led to a sharp increase in beer consumption and profits for the breweries, but pissed off the government because they lost out on the tax revenue. As a result, they quickly changed the law and hiked up the tax on these beers. In return, the brewers launch new products called "third beers" that contain no wheat and malt at all but are made from peas and soybeans (yum yum). The advantage is that they are taxed less and are about 30% to 40% cheaper than regular beers, but are these fake beers as satisfying? Well I leave that up to you. However, how can you have a decent beer without using malt and wheat? The popular brands are Nodogoshi Nama, Shin Nama, Draft One and Super Blue.