That said, it's the only magazine I actually buy each month and I take great delight in savouring the experience of reading it, mostly because it is the primary source of "here-is-something-interesting-about-Japan-that-is-good-and-not-technology" stories. Yes, this spout rag for metrosexual internationalists with platinum frequent flyer accounts is about the best place to find out about positive stories about Japan available anywhere on UK news-stands.
I was surprised by the cost that they mention. A million dollars sounds like a lot to me - that's what? About £640k? I seem to remember watching the first steps of some little brewery in a garage in Nottingham that I used to pass on the way home from town and from the look of the place that must have been started on what they had left after 2 pints o' mild and packet of salted. Judging from the quality of the pull badges you get from some UK breweries*2 they clearly don't spend anything like that here. OK, someone like BrewDog may have done - check out their spanky metal thingies - but others like Shotover don't sound like they have.
I think that's it's a real shame that there aren't more opportunities for craft brewing in Japan, because I am absolutely confident that if there were, they would be stellar. This kind of small, dedicated artisan business is the sort of thing that I know Japan does very well - all the kind of attention-to-detail service and craft coffee experiences I have had in Japan would be expressed perfectly in beer. I can imagine that it would be exactly the sort of thing to draw folks out in to the countryside. Damn, if I didn't know nothing about beer myself, I'd be tempted to head off to a quite valley in Nagano and give it a go myself.
Right then, other reasons I find Monocle interesting are: because they have, or at least had, a monthly manga called Kita-Koga (utter rubbish); the Editor-at-large is Hidetoshi Nakata (yes, that one); their illustrator is Japanese; they feature stacks of Japanese artists on their weekly podcast*3; and when I suggested that they change the naming convention of their files for said podcast, they *4 listened and did it - brilliant! Basically it's a fun and remarkably varied read, totally devoid of celebrity*5 and I'm simply jealous that I don't have the kind of income to burn on their lifestyle.
*1 or an eye watering 2,310yen if you are in Japan.
*2 go on, I dare ya, tell me that's not a legitimate method of rating a breweries quality {ahem}
*3 now that I come to think of it, they never call it that.
*4 I wrote to tb himself - I can't imagine that it was he who actually picked it up on his Blackberry, but I like to imagine that it was - perhaps in a quite moment in a Lufthansa First Class lounge en route to Narita. It was to Japanese style YYMMDD format btw - so it appears in numerical order, instead of the other way round.
*5 unless you know fashion designers on obscure brands - and that's a fairly legit form of minor-celebdom I guess. Actually, the biggest celebs they ever mention are Japanese popstars (mega, if only in Japan) and Alain de Botton. Oh, and foreign politicians.
