Aha! The first harbinger of winter is here! Not the first frost, nor bare trees, nor migrating geese; not even dripping noses or the flu, BUT...
Sapporo Winter's Tale beer suddenly appearing in the beer fridge of my local Family Mart here in Hiroshima!
I popped into Family Mart on my way home intending to pick up three cans of my default brew, Kirin Ichiban Shibori, but as soon as I saw the tell-tale blue of a Sapporo Winter's Tale in the beer fridge I felt a sudden rush of nostalgia and impulsively switched brand.
Sapporo Winter's Tale
Sapporo Winter's Tale is a seasonal lager released every winter since 1988. Seasonal beers are popular in Japan, but Winter's Tale was Japan's first winter-season beer.
Nostalgia Trip
I first came across Sapporo Winter's Tale before AI, before smart phones, before mobile phones, before Windows 3.5, before the Internet was a thing, way back in the winter of 1990, during my very first year in Japan; a beer that was inspired by Shakespeare proved utterly irresistible!
Yup, it's named after Shakespeare's late tragi-comedy, The Winter's Tale, a play about a king who is suddenly consumed by jealousy (without any insinuating Iago to provoke it). It's also the play in which a character is chased off stage and presumably killed by a bear: "exit pursued by a bear."
Back in those days, the can design often included a legend that referenced Shakespeare in some way. For example, the 1990 vintage can has this snippet of a song sung by the pickpocket Autolycus:
Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Winter's Tale, IV: 3, 130-133
The 1996 design was the best of all as it featured this inspired allusion to Richard III, I: 1:
Now is the winter of our content, made glorious by this fine ferment
The 2025 Winter's Tale
At 5.5% it's a tad stronger than the standard +/-5% Japanese lager, and strikes me as being a little more bitter than my usual Kirin Ichiban Shibori. According to my Google AI search, the flavour profile,
features a balanced bitterness and a subtle richness. Some recent recipes have included a portion of wheat malt for a smoother mouthfeel and use increased quantities of fine Saaz aroma hops for a more refined aroma andコク (koku or "richness").
What this explanation does not mention is that one of the key ingredients of Sapporo beer is... RICE!
The kanji for "rice" is 米 - and you can clearly see 米 on the ingredients list on the side of the can:
When I poured it, it did not produce much of a head, and by the time I took the this photo, what little head there was had dispersed:
2025 Can Design (front)
The dark blue background with snowflakes continues the colour scheme of the last couple of years.
Beneath the Sapporo Star the name of the beer is spelled out in large white "kanji" characters: 冬物語 = fuyu-mono-gatari = Winter's Tale.
冬 = fuyu = winter
物語 = monogatari = tale
Next, we get this year's legend in the gold bar: 冬にしか、出会えない = fuyu ni shika, deaenai = [you] cannot encounter [it], except in winter.
冬 = fuyu = winter
に = ni = in, during
しか = only - used with a negative verb to mean "except"
出会えない = deai-enai = cannot meet, cannot encounter
After that, the English text, with the boast,
The Winter's Tale was released as Japan's first wintertime seasonal beer.
2025 Can Design (back)
Okay, turning the can around, we find what looks like a linocut design of a hearty winter hearthplace, a straight glass full of beer crowned with an optimistic head, and a 2025 edition of The Winter's Tale on a table, some logs, and a winter scene outside the window.
It took me two cans of Winter's Tale to complete this tale of Winter's Tale, and so I shall now leave you to yourselves and crack open the third and final Winter's Tale to drink sadly by myself on this #BeerSaturday 🥴🍻
Cheers!
Source: http://www.beernari.com/sapporo/sapkis/sappokis2.htm