2 Best Sights in Hokkaido, Japan

Quaint brick buildings adjacent to a giant shopping mall make up the public face of Sapporo's most famous export. Here you'll find a small museum with signage mostly in Japanese that reveals the development of bottle and label designs and depicts decades of cheesecake shots from advertising posters.

Pick up an English-language guide at the counter for explanations of all the different things on display in the museum.

For ¥300 you can taste any of the brews: Black Label is most popular, but the Classic and Kaitoku are only available in Hokkaido. Taste all three for ¥800. Also available are tea and soft drinks for ¥100.

In the evening the cavernous Sapporo Biergarten is filled with serious drinkers tackling the tabe-nomi-hodai (all-you-can-eat-and-drink) feast of lamb barbecue and beer (about ¥4,400 per person). The catch: You have to finish within 100 minutes. To get here, take a 15-minute Factory Line circular bus from the train station. It's a ¥1,000 taxi ride.

Leap off a ski jump into the freezing air and land like a pro—or not. In this museum at the base of the Olympic Okura Jump, a realistic simulator lets you comparing jump distances. The 1972 Winter Olympics and other Japanese sporting successes in skating, curling, and many forms of skiing are celebrated with displays interesting even to nonsporting types. Outside the museum, take the chairlift to the top of the real ski jump for a chilling view of what athletes face before takeoff. From the Maruyama Koen Subway Station it is a 10-minute taxi ride, or take Bus No. 14 from Maruyama Bus Terminal to Okurayama Kyogijyo Iriguchi bus stop (10 minutes) then walk a further 10 minutes. Sapporo hopes to host the 2030 Winter Olympics, which will bring more attention to the island's great resorts.