A couple of bright guys in Colorado have devised a way to turn brewery waste into high-protein food for fish. Sounds like a win-win-win situation: The breweries unload their by-products, fish farmers get a new source for a necessary commodity, and the fish, well, they presumably don’t know the difference anyway.

The problem arises when you try to do it the other way around. Beer becoming fish—what’s not to like about that? But fish becoming beer?

If that notion sends you scrambling for a frosted glass rather than an airsick bag, then it’s time you started planning a visit to Japan, specifically to the city of Kochi, on the island of Shikoku.

That’s where you’ll find the Tosa Kuroshio microbrewery, the only source—so far, that is—of beer flavored with katsuo bushi.

Katsuo bushi, which translates as “bonito flakes,” is, after rice and soy sauce, perhaps the most common item in a Japanese kitchen. It consists of paper-thin shavings of dried Pacific bonito, a relative of mackerel. Its many uses range from serving as the basis for the ubiquitous dashi soup stock to garnishing a wide variety of dishes.

Apparently, the folks at Tosa Kuroshio decided that mere rice and hops weren’t sufficiently special ingredients for a beer meant to celebrate their brewery’s tenth anniversary. What they needed was a mystery ingredient, and it sure looks as if they found it.

After all, if there’s any greater mystery than why someone would add dried fish to beer, we can’t imagine what it is!

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By DanBing on 07-06-2009