Howdy, Chris here.

With our different schedules and responsibilities, it’s very rare that all of the Baird Brewing employees have a chance to get together to enjoy a relaxing day of fun and beers — hell, it’s even unusual to get all the brewery staff together in one place for some beers and bowling! But such a day did happen right after new years when the staffs of Nakameguro, Harajuku and Bashamichi Taprooms hopped on down to Numazu to join the brewery staff for our 2012 Shin-nen-kai (new year’s party).

The Taproom staff took a bus in from Tokyo and arrived at the brewery at 11:00. Of course, the brewers had all been there since 8:00 doing our usual jobs, like keg cleaning, checking up on beers, labeling, preparing for the party, etc. Work was soon forgotten, however, as the bus took off to our first destination, a campground in Shuzenji, Ito City — which just happens to be the future site of our new brewery. It was the first time for most of us to see the property, and we were definitely not disappointed. Beautiful, breathtaking, awesome, fantastic, lovely; those were just a few of the comments.

We started out, as is customary in Japan, with an opening address by the Shacho/Boss, Brewmaster Bryan, his lovely sidekick Sayuri and GM John. Everyone, of course, listened in rapt attention, even though it was friggin’ cold and windy and many of us just wanted to get those kegs of beer tapped! (Of course we had kegs of beer!!!)

As I said, the site is a gorgeous. The idea is to build the world’s most beautiful country brewery, not just a prefabricated warehouse/factory, with a Taproom and event hall above the brewery. The plans include a catwalk circling the brewery where customers and visitors can go on self-guided tours to see what’s going on down below. And since it was a campground in its former life, part of the property will be for . . . duh, camping. And did I mention it’s along the Kano River? Can fishing be far behind? And what about the out-of-business onsen/hot springs next door? Well, now we might be dreaming just a little bit . . . or are we?

Once Bryan explained the plans for the new brewery, we got down to the fun stuff — eating and drinking. We had brought a couple kegs with us — Brewmaster’s Nightmare Rye IPA and Carpenter’s Mikan Ale — plus a cooler filled with bottles. Numazu Fishmarket Taproom Manager Michiru had whipped up a bunch of goodies designed to keep us filled up and warm, and they did just that.

Our stomachs full, we filled our glasses and wandered around the property, down to the river, around to where the Baird Orchard and Gardens will be, over to the camping area — at the risk of belaboring the point, it really is an impressive piece of land.

At this point, we were getting a bit cold, so we loaded into the bus and headed off to Gotemba Kogen to warm up in the onsen/hot springs. On the first leg of the bus ride, only I had the sense to grab a couple beers out of the cooler — I shared strategically with selected people nearby; before the second leg started, nearly everyone grabbed a bottle or two, so by the time we arrived at Gotemba Kogen, some of us (me!) were buzzing pretty good.

Unfortunately no cameras were allowed inside the onsen/hot springs, so you’ll just have to wait for the Babes of Baird Brewing (and Beefcakes of Baird Beer) Calendar, coming hopefully later this year.

After arriving at Gotemba Kogen, we had a tour of the brewery — very nice. They do make some excellent beers there. Personally I think the Schwarzbier is one of the best of its kind in Japan, and the Pilsner is wonderful. Others enjoy the Weissen and Dunkelweissen. And still others are content with water, but none of them will ever work at Baird Brewing!

By this time, after hearing about how their beers are made, we were getting a bit thirsty. I found a tank that no one was watching — seemed like a good idea at the time.

The rest of the evening was taken up with eating and drinking massive amounts of food and beers. Some of the more sane among us (including me, amazingly) took the early bus back to Numazu, and I managed to get to bed before 11:00.; But urged on by the Brewmaster, the younger guys stayed on. The brewery the next morning was a little quieter and slower-moving the next morning, needless to say.

It was a great day, especially wonderful to see the future brewery site after months of hearing about it. The new brewery is going to be absolutely magnificent, and it’s going to be an honor and privilege to brew there. Expect construction to start this summer, with a target opening of early 2013. We are looking forward to seeing you all there.

Cheers,

Chris

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Howdy, Chris here.

I’ve written a bit about how we changed our keg labeling and hinted at more improvements to come. Well from today, the Taproom experience will be enhanced as we introduce our new glassware and menus.

First, the glassware. Before we had a dizzying array of glass sizes, shapes, volumes that left customers (and sometimes even staff) confused. But after eleven years, we are finally able to afford the quality glassware that we’ve always wanted. And so from today, you’ll find four new types of glasses at our Taprooms, all from Sahm in Germany.

For regular beers (other than Suruga Bay Imperial IPA), beers will come in 500 ml and 250 ml Willi glasses. For seasonals and Suruga Bay, you’ll get your beer in Munique glasses, either 400 ml or 200 ml. As with all good glasses from Germany, each features a demarkation line — beer will be filled to (or even above) that line, meaning that when you order a beer, you will know exactly how much you’re getting. Large Kurofune Porter? 500ml. Small Dark Sky Imperial Stout? 200 ml. Simple.

We’ll also start serving tasters in sets of three — order a combination of any three regular or seasonal Baird beers and you’ll get three 140 ml taster glasses, making it much easier to sample widely without getting totally blotto!

Prices will also be simplified, as follows:

Shizuoka Taproom Prices

• Large Willi (500 ml for regulars) or Munique (400 ml for Suruga Bay and Seasonals) = ¥800
• Small Willi (250 ml for regulars) or Munique (200 ml for Suruga Bay and Seasonals) = ¥500
• Taster Set (combination of three tasters) = ¥800

Tokyo & Yokohama Taproom Prices

• Large Willi or Munique = ¥1000
• Small Willi or Munique = ¥600
• Taster Set = ¥1000

And if you want to get one of those snazzy new glasses to use at home, they will be on sale at all Taprooms: ¥600 for either Willi glasses, ¥800 for either size of Munique.

In conjunction with the new glassware, we are very proud to introduce our new bilingual menu boards. Created by our wonderful designer Ishida Eiko, these wooden menus feature full color label artwork with descriptions of our ten regular beers along with other information about our beers, glassware, nombei cards, etc — Japanese on one side, English on the other.

There will be more changes in the coming months, culminating in the construction of our new brewery later this year. This is an exciting time to be a craft brewer, especially at Baird. We hope you all enjoy the ride as much as we are!

Cheers,

Chris

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Howdy, Chris here.

Although we didn’t brew every day like we did in November, December saw yet another first in the Baird Brewery — it was the first month where we brewed all ten of our regular beers in the same month. So here’s a quick rundown of the beers we made during the last month of 2011.

1st: UFIA-3.12 (sb) A small batch of Ushi-Tora’s First Impact Ale, a strong black hoppy ale. Only available at Ushi-Tora, of course.

2nd: PA-21.12 The twenty-first batch of the year of Rising Sun Pale Ale.

3rd: IIPA-15.12 The fifteenth batch of the year of Suruga Bay Imperial IPA.

4th: VHA-4.12 (sb) & BelBA-1.12 Double brew day. On the small system, we brewed the fourth batch of Vivo’s house ale; on the big system, a version of our brown ale but this time using our Belgian yeast (part of our continuing same-beer-different-yeast series), making this an Angry Belgian Brown Ale.

5th & 6th A rarity — two days in a row with no brewing! Now, when you notice that we brewed on both systems the day before this break and also on the day after, you might ask why we didn’t just spread out the brewing. Answer: We are slaves to the yeast; the yeast isn’t ready, we don’t brew. Also we had a bunch of other jobs to do, you know tiny things like kegging and bottling, you know, stuff like that.

7th: BashaAle-5.12 (sb) & TIPL-1.12 Another double batch day — Bashamichi’s Smoked Brown Ale on the small system, and yet another same-beer-different-yeast beer on the big system, this time Teikoku India Pale Lager. I’m guessing you can tell what the difference is there. ;-)

8th: PA-22.12 You guys are drinking so much Rising Sun that we’re brewing it every week now!

9th: AA-10.12 Red Rose Amber Ale, tenth batch of the year. (Remember, our brewing year runs from April 2011 through March 2012.)

10th: BA-10.12 Not to be outdone by Red Rose, Angry Boy Brown Ale demanded that we brew a batch. So we did.

11th: SBWA-1.12 Our Belgian yeast is working so well these days that we just had to put it to the test, so we whipped up a batch of Strong Belgian Wheat Ale. This high alcohol beer fermented out pretty much completely in five days.

12th Another day of no brewing, so we used the time to CIP (clean in place) the brewhouse, one of our twice-monthly major cleanings.

13th: NCA-2.12 Nide Cream Ale for our friends at Nide/Goodbeer. And with the opening of Goodbeer Faucets (Japanese website only, or check them out on Facebook), we’ll be brewing this one a lot more.

14th: I-11.12 This year’s eleventh batch of Teikoku IPA.

15th: CBA-1.12 (sb) Handpump beers are fun to create and brew. This one is a malty brown ale with lots of crystal/caramel malts. So of course it’s called Crystal Brown Ale.

16th: IIPA-16.12 Batch sixteen of Suruga Bay Imperial IPA. This beer takes about two weeks longer to brew than any other regular ale, and we’re having a hard time keeping it in stock. Thanks, Japan!

17th: SessAle-6.12 Our newest regular beer is Single-Take Session Ale, a dry-hopped low-alcohol beer, and today we brewed this year’s sixth batch.

18th No brewing today. Whew.

19th: PA-23.12 Rising Sun, twenty-third brew of the year. Can the twenty-fourth be far behind?

20th: GCHA-1.12 (sb) & P-6.12 We did a double brew again today. On the small system, our first foray into brewing with home-grown hops, Garden Cascade Hop Ale. Grown by Fishmarket Taproom Beer Manager Chris (not to be confused with Lead Brewer Chris) in his home garden, we lovingly call these hops Kadoike Cascade. Interesting to say the least. Once we build our new brewery, Taproom Chris has big plans for growing even more hops, something to look forward to in the coming years. And then on the big system, we did our sixth brew of Kurofune Porter.

21st: NIPA-2.12 (sb) The opening of Goodbeer Faucets was a big success, and the third Nide beer, Nide IPA, is selling fast, so today we brewed another small batch. Stop by Faucets in Shibuya to give it a try.

22nd: IIPA-17.12 Seventeenth batch of Suruga Bay Imperial IPA.

23rd: NL-10.12 Although today is a Japanese national holiday, the brewery never rests: Numazu Lager (tenth batch) today.

24th: BelchoS-1.12 Our Belgian yeast is up again today with the brewing of Belgian Chocolate Stout. Rich and thick and oh so good.

25th: WA-8.12 Wheat King Ale, our American wheat, is seeing its eighth brew on Christmas day. Merry Christmas, Wheat King!

26th: BA-11.12 Seeing as how the brewers had to work on Christmas, it would have been more appropriate to brew the Angry Boy Brown Ale one day earlier. But a Boxing Day brown ale also works. Eleventh batch this year.

27th: HJA-6.12 (sb) While we brewed the year’s sixth batch of Harajuku Ale on the small system, we CIPed the big system. In a sense that made today another double brew day. But I’d really hate to drink what came out of the big system!

28th: PA-24.12 Last year we brewed Rising Sun nineteen times. This year will be over thirty.

29th & 30th Another double “no-brew” day, the last of the year. (Duh!)

31st: DS-6.12 Just in time, we squeezed in a batch of Shimaguni Stout, this year’s sixth, the last of the ten regular beers to be brewed this month.

So we came in at 28 batches for the month, not bad for the winter “off season”. Look for these beers in the coming months. And remember, in 2012, Drink Good Beer!

Cheers,

Chris

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