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Sapporo’s space barley beer

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Talk about a brew that’s out of this world. Japanese brewer Sapporo is introducing Space Beer. It’s produced using malt made from barley seeds that spent five months aboard the International Space Station. Anchor Marco Werman talks about Sapporo’s new offering with “The Beer Goddess,” Lisa Morrison.

• Lisa’s radio show: Beer O’Clock
• BBC Video: ‘Out of this world’ Japanese beer

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MARCO WERMAN: Now, a taste of inter-galactic brew.  We hear that Japanese beer maker, Sapporo is making something with space barley and it’s beer made using barley grown from seeds that’s spent 5 months in space.  Sapporo plans to make this space barley beer available to a select few next month.  We wanted to know what a connoisseur thought about it.  Lisa Morrison is a beer blogger based in Portland, Oregon and she’s not sold on the idea that space barley is any different than plain old earth barley.

LISA MORRISON: Beer is a very simple product made of barely, yeast, malt, or hops, and water.  And urh, barley is a big part of the ingredient list but quite frankly, barley is barley, I think but it’ll be fun to find out.

WERMAN: Now a six pack of this space brew  is going to run $110 US dollars.  Is this the priciest six pack you’ve ever heard of?

MORRISON: It is not, actually.  There are some vegetable beers that have gone for way higher than that upwards of 350 or more.  So for this being out of space it might actually be a relatively good deal believe it or not.

WERMAN: So the idea is for astronauts to brew self-sustaining beer if I gather correctly, is that right?

MORRISON: Yeah, yeah.  I think what they are trying to do is set it up so eventually colonies will be able to brew their own beer and the rest of us here on earth instead of seeing Unidentified Flying Objects will see Unidentified Flying Breweries.

WERMAN: Tell me a practical thing, Lisa, how did the barley get up into space?

MORRISON: Well I think what they did is they actually just shipped it up there and spent months in the international space station.  I don’t know whether it was languishing in zero gravity or if they were growing it, or if they were testing on it or anything like that but I think it’s funny that barley made it up there before most of us.

WERMAN: Sapporo, I’ve got to say, and I’m not trying to get schwag out of this is one of my favorite beers but I like it precisely because its crisp and chug gable, that’s its reputation.  Why do you think Sapporo is doing this?

MORRISON: Well apparently, they are really interested in raising money for space research and to promote their own children to get more into space education.  So actually, all of the money going from this lottery that they are going to be doing to sell these six packs is going to be going directly to space education for Japanese kids.

WERMAN: And that lottery is open to the entire planet or just to Japanese?

MORRISON: Just to Japanese, unfortunately, for you and me.

WERMAN: Okay, so with only 256 six-packs say you’re one of those Japanese people who gets lucky and you get one of these six-packs, what does that mean in terms of kind of like local customs that you got one of these special packs of Sapporo?

MORRISON: Well, I would say that, I’m not sure whether there are any rules or anything, but I’m wondering if you might be finding that sort of thing on line on different types of auction sites or something down the road because it seems it would be a pretty hot commodity.

WERMAN: Yeah, no doubt they’d feel pretty lucky.  Well, we’ll leave it there.  Bottoms up Lisa Morrison, the beer goddess in Portland, Oregon.   Thanks a lot.

MORRISON: Cheers, thanks for having me.

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