Making sure your beer is.... beer

Is that beer you are drinking there - or is it a beer flavored drink?

In Japan, the first time visitor may be surprised at how cheap some of the beers are compared to other seemingly identical beers.

However, as with such things, it is not always what it seems.
You could very well be drinking "発泡酒" (Happoshu) which basically means sparkling alcohol.
Happoshu is taxed less heavily than full malt alcohols, meaning they can be sold cheaply.
The amount of tax is related to how much malt is present in the drink. The less the malt, the less the tax.

Thus, anything with a malt content of less than 67% (Prior to fermentation) is classified as happoshu, which can contain as little as 0% malt.
The classification can prove problematic since a lot of Belgian and German beers can be brewed with things other than malt, rendering them "happoshu" and not beer.

Taking this in, you can probably understand why izakaya beers can be brought so cheaply.

How can you tell the difference between happoshu and real beer?
take a look at these two lables:

Label says "Liqueur (happosei)" This is happoshu

Label says "Nama Bi-ru" This is real beer.

Hopefully this sheds some light on the differences between happoshu and Beer. Read the labels carefully, beer is usually always sold as "生ビール”look for those characters, and you should be alright!

Lastly, to see how far happoshu can deviate from actual beer, here is a limited edition spring cherry cocktail - since malt is not used in the brewing process, this is also called happoshu.

That about sums everything up. 乾杯 (kanpai!) And happy drinking!