Japanese: キリンラガービール (KIRIN RAGAA BIIRU)

Brewery: Kirin

Style: Lager beer

ABV: 5%

Price: 207円

Strapline: “The legendary KIRIN is a symbol of “Good Luck.” Open up KIRIN today, and you’ll see what it is all about”

I need to apologise for misleading you in my entry on Kirin Classic. It seems that the standard, everyday Kirin product is not that one, but this one – Kirin Lager Beer. Hence the explanation of what a Kirin (or ‘KIRIN’) actually is. The can promised that opening it up would allow me to ‘see what it is all about’. Amazingly enough this turned out to be true. I flicked the ring pull up and instead of the hiss of carbon dioxide escaping, I was treated to the unmistakable whistle of flutes and the banging of taiko drums. The ground beneath me began to shake and a crack appeared in the floor at my feet. I heard the deepest, loudest rumble I have ever heard. It grew and grew, drowning out the music, until all of a sudden the walls of my house collapsed inwards, consumed by the fissure that had now become a vast abyss, swallowing the street and distant buildings. Out of the depths a mountain emerged, thrust upwards with the abrupt violence of a treacherous knife to the belly. I was thrown to the ground as the world behind me dropped away. I was at the top of the mountain. Lying face-down I felt the cold caress of snowflakes landing in my hair. The rumbling had stopped and the flutes had returned. I rolled over and sat up. Below me, all the way to the horizon, rippled a white ocean. I shivered in the cold. A tiny movement in the distance caught my eye. It seemed to move very slowly upwards, growing in size. It slowed and began descending in an arc – at least a mile long – down towards me. I saw a magnificent grin, a single horn, a scaly hide and a shaggy mane. The creature was twice my size and bellowed a laugh which echoed around the rocks above the precipice. As its hoofed feet touched the ground there was a terrible fluttering commotion by my left ear. I caught sight of a hawk diving out of my peripheral vision. I suddenly realised that I was holding an aubergine in my right hand. The kirin (for that was the only thing the monstrous creature could have been) continued laughing and then shouted the word “HATSUYUME!” in a booming voice, causing avalanches on distant slopes. It flicked its tail, bent its forelegs in a deep bow and then offered me a single wish for the new year.

And all I could think of was “I wish this was as good as the Kirin Classic.”