Kirin Brewery announced today that they will releasing their third quasi-beer into the populy Japanese alcohol category known as “third-category.” The Japanese media came up with that name, officially they’re classified as “other miscellaneous alcohol” or “liquor.” Naturally they’re subject to lower taxes, are often made with soybeans but without malt. The first and second categories are “beer” and “happoshu,” which is a low-malt beer with less than 67% malt.

Kirin’s newest entry into the lucrative Japanese quasi-beer market is “Sparkling Hop,” which, according to the press release, will “feature a distinctive aroma created by blending Japanese and New Zealand hop varieties. Strong pressure gives the product a rich head and a refreshing finish, Kirin officials said.” Sparkling Hop’s target demographic is twenty-somethings, the same group that are buying the dreaded alcopops. Also from the press release: Sparkling Hop is made by mixing a “happoshu” low-malt drink with spirits. Under Japan’s liquor tax system, the new product is classified as a liqueur, whose tax rate is lower than those for beer and happoshu. This is Kirin’s third product in the third category, following “Ryoshitsu Sozai” and “Nodogoshi Nama.” With the three products, Kirin hopes to beat out its rivals in the heavily crowded third-category market.

These “third-category” products along with the low-malt happoshu will likely never reach our shores, because they’re largely a result of taxation. If Japan’s tax structure was different, they wouldn’t exist. But they appear to be having the same damaging effect as alcopops are having here, not so much in terms of underage drinking (in Japan it’s age 20), but insofar as the sweeter drinks are finding favor with kids raised on sweet soft drinks who are not acquiring a taste for bitter drinks like beer as they age. It’s somewhat ironic that Japan’s beer industry in trying to get around the tax laws, may be shooting themselves in the foot with these lower-taxed, highly sweetened alcoholic drinks.

Saturday after the Oregon Brewers Festival, Tom Dalldorf, Stephen Beaumont and I went to the Rogue Brewpub on NW Flanders. Stephen wanted to try Rogue’s new rums and Tom and I were game to come along.

The Rogue Distillery sits above the brewpub.

Where they make two kinds of rum, a white rum and a dark rum.

John Couchot, who runs the new Rogue House of Spirits in Newport which opened June 10, shows us the still and gives us a little tour.

While Stephen Beaumont and Tom Dalldorf listen. Barrels along the walls age rum.

Tom gets a snoot full. We did have a barrel tasting of the white rum, which was excellent.

My friend Adam Lambert works for Rogue and his palatial office is above the distillery.

I recently went on and on about the many niche markets Anheuser-Busch was looking into infiltrating both within the beer market and outside of it. Looks like I missed one. According to Miller’s BrewBlog, a trademark application has been filed by A-B for an alcoholic tea to be known as “Pier 21.”

The first to make this type of malternative product I’m aware of was Bison Brewing of Berkeley, California. The brewery is generally known for its excellent organic beers but for a period of time they made a line of Hard Ice Tea using flavors like Green Tea and Red Hibiscus. I think there were eventually four or five different flavors. They took a lot of flack for them at the time, but as these things go they weren’t too bad. They certainly tasted good and were much less offensive them the sweeter malternatives that were all the rage around the same time. Due to issues with their contract brewer, they stopped production of them a little while ago. Of course, I should disclose I’m a tea drinker — it’s my preferred vehicle of caffeine delivery. I drink at least a 1 liter bottle of Tejava per day (it’s simply microbrewed tea, unsweetened and with nothing added).

Boston Beer still makes Twisted Tea, their version of a hard ice tea, which now comes in four flavors. It’s most likely the category — or would that be subcategory — leader. BrewBlog mentions that ‘[f]or the 13 weeks ended May 27, Twisted Tea sales increased 44% to more than 55,000 cases.”

Mike’s makes a Hard Iced Tea, too. They’re most well-known for their Hard Lemonade which was — and perhaps still is, I don’t follow these things if I can help it — one of the more popular of the lemonade flavored alcopops. There may be more, but I’m not aware of them.

The application A-B filed described Pier 21 as an “alcoholic tea-based beverage.” This would be yet another niche market along the long tail that A-B might be pursuing. They are already making and/or distributing the malternatives Bacardi Silver, B^E (B-to-the-E), Peels (alcoholic fruit juices), and Tilt (an energy malt beverage).

They also used to make Doc Otis, a lemonade flavored alcopop to compete with Mike’s, Hopper’s Hooch, Two Dogs and other hard lemonades during the heyday of such products.

Whatever happened to the old Doc? Can he be found on a golf course, having retired and moved to Florida?