I’ve just learned 生ビール, which WK translates as draft beer. I’d be very surprised if that’s correct, even in America. As a Brit I can tell you that it’s certainly not what we call draught beer. Draught beer can be live, served from a cask, or pasteurised when served from a keg.
Small countries have a different relationship with live beers than big countries, because live beers don’t generally travel well, so major US draft beers won’t be live.
In the UK the closest term for 生ビール would simply be live beer (which is what CAMERA uses), although live is more typically a word used to distinguish live bottled beers. Cask beers are typically called cask or real. The closest US term I’ve come across for 生ビール would be craft beer. Are there any knowledgeable American beer enthusiasts out there who can verify US usage?
One good way to research the fiddly specifics of some terms in Japanese is to look them up on Wikipedia in Japanese. The 生ビール article defines it as
生ビール（なまビール）とは、日本において熱処理をしていないビール全般を指す。非熱処理ビール（ひねつしょりビール）とも呼ばれる。 “Nama bi-ru” in Japan refers to all beer that has not been pasteurised. It’s also called “unpasteurised beer”.
It then goes on to say that 生ビール and “draught beer” are synonymous, though what exactly “draught beer” means depends on the country.
You just learned the vocab 生, meaning fresh. Combined with the katakana word for beer makes this draft beer or unpasteurized beer.
Note that while in a lot of countries, “draft beer” refers only to beer that’s drawn from a keg, 生ビール can also refer to unpasteurized canned or bottled beer, giving it a shorter shelf-life, but also keeping it fresh.
Perhaps note should be updated to say – unpasteurized beer, or draft beer in Japanese culture.
Or avoiding the confusing primary meaning altogether, like Ume.
Not sure about draft beer as an English word, but there also seems to be ドラフトビール.
Thank you. I think to me, that is the question. Not what’s the Japanese usage, which seems clear enough, but I wondered is there anywhere in the world where an Anglophone reads draft/draught and thinks that means they are getting live or unpasteurised because it said draught?
For fiddly English usage, the definition from English Wiki states: “Draught beer, also spelt draft, is beer served from a cask or keg rather than from a bottle or can.”
It’s not synonymous to a Brit or the English Wiki, and if it’s not synonymous to a Yank either, perhaps a better translation could be sought.
It doesn’t seem to make a distinction between 生ビール and ドラフトビール as individual words at all, and suggests both in Japan mean unpasteurized specifically, while in America I guess it’s saying “draft” means anything not regular pasteurized canned/bottled beer, while in the UK and other places for that word the 樽, the cask, is the important part.
For what it’s worth, I’m American and drink a lot of beer casually in an area where there’s craft beer everywhere, and I agree that I’ve never heard the term “live beer” or consciously internalized any kind of distinction around pasteurization. I would personally just assume “draft beer” = “on tap” and if you told me there was a distinction in process between that and when it’s bottled, and you could also bottle the “draft” beer and call it “live” I’d be like “oh, uh, okay, that makes sense.”
It feels like to me what’s most relevant in this context is what’s used commonly by consumers broadly, and (again as an American) I can picture easily looking at a “draft beer list” in a menu or saying “I’d like a draft beer, what do you have on tap?” in the same way that I can picture easily someone ordering 生ビールひとつ, and so what I think what WaniKani is trying to go for mainly with the vocab is “what do you call it when you order a beer and it comes out of a tap and not a bottle?” and the fact that the specific word used in that situation across languages/regions comes at the concept from different angles and ends up technically encompassing different things is interesting, but not critically relevant. (I assume in the UK “draught” would be most common in that kind of a situation?)
Although I guess I’m betraying my own biases by wording that distinction that way when I guess I have no idea really how the result of the order 生ビールひとつ is served or how it gets to the table. Perhaps reprhrased - “how would you order the go-to freshest beer that a bar would have on hand?” or “a beer - like, you know, at a bar or a pub or an izakaya rather than at home”
As someone that is a beer drinker and has been doing so now for 25 years in Japan I can assure you that in any restaurant/bar here, what in the US would be called generically “draft beer” is listed on the menu and asked for as “`生ベール”.
Do not make the mistake of getting caught up in always trying to map Japanese “literal” translation to English in a 1-1 manner. Especially by only considering one of the meanings for a kanji. You can see quite a few different meanings for the kanji 生 here: 生 - Jisho.org. The languages are very different.
Also, do not presume “because in English we would say it this way/it would mean this…” means that in Japanese it is done the same way. There are lots of differences. Here, when folks are consuming their medication, even in pill format, they “drink” the pill. Always seems so weird to me as in English I only ever heard “take your medicine/take your pill”. When I would translate to Japanese in a literal way my wife would wonder what I was saying. “No don’t take your pill with you, drink it now!”. There are so many other such differences that I encounter all time.
I think “live beer” might be quite an English/British term, and I suspect even then probably more of a beer fan’s term. Admittedly I don’t really drink beer but I’m Irish and I’ve never heard of it in my life, just asked my beer drinking boyfriend and he also had no idea. It probably is closer to the strict definition of 生ビール after looking it up but I feel like in everyday use draught beer is probably fine as an equivalent? Interesting topic for sure though!
I’d agree draught beer = on tap. And if that’s what 生ビールひ means, fair enough.
Live beers come with the yeast still active, either in the cask or in the bottle. Fermentation is therefore continuous up until the point the beer is poured into the glass. Factory pasteurization and filtration kills the yeast and removes it from the beer so the beer is no longer living. Kegs contain pasteurised beer in the same way as casks contain live beer.
In a UK pub cask beer would be hand pumped from the cellar to avoid the disturbing the yeast. A keg beer is electrically pumped by forcing carbon dioxide or nitrogen into the keg, which pushes it up into the spout. While you will find plenty of bars with no cask beers, most traditional pubs have at least one or two.
The only live beers I’ve had in the US were craft beers and they were definitely not advertised as such. Seeing 生ビール meant unpasteurized, I leapt to the conclusion, perhaps wrongly, that it actually was live. If it has just become a marketing term in Japan and you get the same style beer as you would if you ordered a Kirin or a Sapporo, more’s the pity.
I do think if it’s labeled that way on a can then it would be unpasteurized, it’s just that 生ビール is also a very common order at a bar in a way that “live beer” isn’t. I think it’s just a case of common parlance emphasizing different aspects in the two languages (further complicated by regional differences). “Draft” ended up a common marketing term in America for beer in the same way and most of the same contexts that 生 did in Japan, even though one vocabulary emphasizes the conveyance method and one a quality of the beer itself.
I think the way WaniKani handles it now, of having the common (at least in America) “draft beer” as the primary with “unpasteurized beer” as an alternate meaning, while mentioning the regional differences and distinction in the description, is a good solution. “live beer” could fairly be added as a synonym I think, certainly with the user-added synonym feature and maybe officially too.
I wouldn’t describe “draft beer” as an incorrect gloss for the Japanese word, even though the venn diagrams of what specifically they can describe are not completely the same. I think that would be getting hung up too much on the precise details. Strictly speaking, most, if not all, single word translated glosses for vocabulary words, do not encompass precisely the same thing as the original word. The differences are definitely interesting and good to keep in mind though!
Generally speaking, draft beer refers to the beer which is on tap. Which is the same thing of course, but most people use the two terms contextually differently. When wanting to know what is available you most often hear “what is on tap?/what do you have on tap?” and see signs like “on tap today”. But you would not likely hear “give me an on tap beer/I’ll take an on tap beer”, you would hear “give me a draft beer/I’ll take a draft beer”. Most bars will interpret that as the person requesting a pint of whatever that establishment’s standard on tap/draft beer is.
生ビール is especially used like that here in Japan. There is no mention of nor conveying of the brand. You are asking for a glass of whatever their standard draft beer is. For most places, there is usually just the one option.
There are some places that may have 2 options and the server will mention the two brands and ask which you want (unless you are a regular and they know what you always order - I have places I frequent that just automatically pour my drink when I walk in the door and it arrives at my seat when I do).
Then there are the “craft breweries” or “craft beer pubs”. They are growing in number over the past 10 years, before that very rare. They specialize in having a variety of beers on tap and what is on tap changes from day to day. There they advertise the specific options available (usually with a lot of detail) and you order a specific one. Or try them all
I cannot think of any context in which that being a synonym would be anything other than trying to force a 1-1 translation to try to make it make sense “in English” based on a literal translation of a specific individual meaning of the constituent kanji parts of a word. Like having “participating person” as an acceptable answer for 人参 or “director’s lifespan” for 寿司.
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I wouldn’t describe “draft beer” as an incorrect gloss for the Japanese word,
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Based on how Japanese people in Japan understand and use the word, not only is not incorrect, it is exactly what it means almost (I am not even sure if it isn’t actually always, not almost) all of the time. 生卵 is another example. The literal translation (if one is insistent on forcing a match to English based on literal individual kanji meaning) would be “live egg”, but to Japanese people, it is what in English is “raw egg”.
Well, Wanikani is an American company and so often it doesn’t have the British versions of all words in the synonym bank so I’m sorry if the American word added to the confusion here.
生 (なま) doesn’t only just mean live, it also means fresh. So when I think of “Fresh beer” it means not canned and on tap so that’s how I remember it’s draft beer. I didn’t even realize there was such as thing as “live beer” but I also don’t drink beer much. Also, the kanji meaning that WK gives is not the meaning for each vocabulary word using that kanji. 生きる means to live, but 生 means fresh/raw (most of the time).
But the most fun thing about 生 is that it’s a vocab word with over 11 different meanings listed in Jisho . org. The 7th meaning is unpasteurized beer; draft beer; draught beer.
Summary
Noun
raw; uncooked; fresh
natural; as it is; unedited; unprocessed
unprotected (sex); raw; bareback Colloquial
live (i.e. not recorded)
inexperienced; unpolished; green; crude
impudence; sauciness Abbreviation, See also [生意気]
unpasteurized beer; draft beer; draught beer Abbreviation, See also [生ビール]
blank (e.g. disk); unused See also [生テープ]
Prefix
9. just a little; somehow; vaguely; partially; somewhat; half-; semi-before an adjective
10. insufficient; incomplete; half-baked; half-hearted; perfunctory
Noun
11. cash Archaic
12. tipsiness Abbreviation, See also [生酔い]
The 生 meaning regarding live is 生配信 which means live recording of like a concert or like currently live news. It’s nice when words are able to be translated directly from one language to another (like 近道 “short road” aka “shortcut”) but this is not the case all the time, and can be quite rare.
I can assure you, as an American living in Japan, when I ask for a 生ビール at a bar here, they take a glass and pour me a beer from the tap, making it a “draft beer” in America, and a “drought beer” in the UK
