Would You Like Some Bilk?

Milk seems to be losing popularity in Japanese society recently.

This year it was the winter vegetables that were overproduced and went to waste cuz the amount harvested was just impossible to consume by ourselves, but this was because of the irregular weather. As for the situation for milk, it's not because the irregular weather grew the cows better and so the cows gave more milk. A huge amount of milk is going to waste simply because we don't drink them so much anymore.

This was the situation last year. And the situation continues if not grows worse this year.
A dairy farmer in the northern island of Hokkaido grieving the situation of the milk demand dropping extremely low, tried to come up with an idea so that the area's only industry (and therefore the chief source of income) won't completely die. Making more dairy products wouldn't improve the situation, so he had to come up with a different brillant idea.

Well, Hokkaido, besides being the top producing prefecture for a variety of vegetables, fruits and milk, happened to be Japan's prominent beer producer. This dairy farmer consulted a beer maker whether it would be possible to make beer from cow milk - and they did.

It was way off common sense and was thought to be close to impossible to make beer from milk due to the unique characteristics of milk (basically it's hard to ferment it for liquor) but wow, they did it in a year (perhaps it took longer, I'm not sure). They say the taste is rather fruity and the drink looks like filtered beer. One third of the drink is milk, so if this "bilk" catches on it would contribute largely to local economy and milk consumption. At the moment, though, it is only available at only six stores in Nakashibetsu Town in Hokkaido. I wonder what it really tastes like - I can't imagine.

That's about it for today :-)

Anybody who's a big fan of any of the following, who is living in Tokyo periphery or are planning to visit Tokyo during February check out today's update on Japan Mode <Tokyo Maniac Event February Ed>

>> Sgt.Keroro (Keroro Gunso) / CLAMP / Japanese swords (katana) / Sakuran (...more like Edo courtesans and dazzling kimono)