CL <flothru@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 07/12/2011 01:31 PM, Declan Murphy wrote:
>> On Jul 12, 1:07 pm, mtfes...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
>>> Declan Murphy<declan_mur...@hotmail.com>  wrote:
>>>> On Jul 11, 10:37?pm, CL<flot...@yahoo.com>  wrote:
>>>>> On 07/11/2011 06:35 PM, Declan Murphy wrote:
>>>>> Belgians, yes, I do have them and enjoy them often, but let's face it,
>>>>> most of the Dutch beers have been reduced to a uniform horse piss status
>>>>> by Stella Artois through their numerous takeovers and quality
>>>>> devolutions, much like the reduction of most champagne to porcine wee
>>>>> status through "quality standardization." ?A decent Asti or cava is much
>>>>> better than anything the French produce and charge 3x for.
>>>> For Belgian beers I tend to stick to Chimay, Orval, Delirium, Pauwel
>>>> Kwaak and Duvel, though having the Leffe on tap makes a huge
>>>> difference. Problem is getting through the 30L kegs quickly. !st half
>>>> keg is fantastic. 2nd half of a keg, I tend to start thinking of
>>>> stewing a rabbit etc.
>>> 
>>> Tangential, but I wonder when the Japanese craft beers are going to
>>> start becoming more available. Some of the few I've  had have been very
>>> good, but are nearly impossible to find.
>> 
>> I stock a few, but its hard to find something I really like. There are
>> a few boutique bars around, and I go to a few small breweries dotted
>> around central Japan (usually Ise, Fushimi, Nagahama, Komagane,
>> Hamamatsu), but don't know how much is exported.
> 
> This Rakuten shop is rumored to ship anything on it's page overseas:
> 
> http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/localbeer/
> 
> if you Google "楽天地ビール" you'll get a bunch of other pages that include
> sets from the larger makers that include brands they don't normally ship overseas.


Rakuten and other merchants/sites use Tenso, a reasonably priced Tokyo
remailing service to ship merchandise overseas from Japanese stores and
merchants that don't. You as an individual consumer register with Tenso and
designate it as your domestic Japanese shipping address, and then Tenso
notifies you when your package arrives, then you authorize Tenso via credit
card to ship it onward to you via EMS. If doing multiple packages from
different vendors, you can consolidate into one EMS shipment to save money.
Only drawback here is that there might be restrictions at Tenso on export
of consumables..I've used Tenso for ordering sundry items generally
unavailable outside Japan, and it's speedy and it works.
-- 
Peace, Steve