Howdy, Chris here.

Today with help from friends Ajen B and Akira F, I’ll write a bit about the Kansai beer scene, specifically the opening of Minoh Beer’s fourth Kansai Taproom, Beer Belly Tenma. (Read about the other three, in Japanese, here.)

First, the important stuff: Beer Belly Tenma has 10 taps and 4 beer engines all serving Minoh beers. The servers were imported from the UK and are vice mounted onto the counter. The beer itself is stored in cold tables under the counter, meaning nice short direct pulls — no need for glycol cooling or mixed gas pushing beer through extremely long beer lines.

The pub itself features a long counter, which seats most of the customers, with three tables for four along the opposite wall.

But what’s most noticeable upon entering is the huge blackboard announcing beers and food. Looks fantastic, but it also looks like the space behind the counter is a bit narrow — I’m betting that the servers’ shirt sleeves are chalk colored by the end of their shift, especially on busy nights.

Pints, which seem to be slightly smaller than a US pint (~420 ml?), are ¥800 to ¥850; ¥500 to ¥550 for a half. The kitchen puts out some pretty tasty meats (from the Meatguy?): roast beef, BBQ ribs, chicken, etc., with most of their stuff coming off the grill. The staff did a great job on opening night, getting food out quickly and correctly — not an easy accomplishment with the nerves and disarray of opening day!

Now a little bit about the Tenma area where Minoh chose to open their latest pub. Basically it’s “stand bar” heaven. There are wine bars, shochu bars, whiskey bars and nihonshu bars, all serving at rock bottom prices. It can get pretty competitive between the different bars. If you know where to go, you can drink really hard-to-get stuff at very reasonable prices. Notice no mention of craft beer bars — until now. Most people in Kansai don’t really have a high beer IQ, but taprooms like this will provide the opportunity for people to start getting more exposed to different beers, and hopefully draw more people into the craft beer scene. As Ajen says, “We need it in Kansai.” I’d say we still need it pretty much everywhere in Japan!

Beer Belly Tenma was packed on opening night, and although I didn’t have the chance to join the fun, I did manage to time a phone call to Ajen perfectly. Right when I called, Minoh Brewer Kaori walked in from a long day at the brewery, so I was able to congratulate her “in person”, so to speak, as well as invite myself down to see the brewery later this year. It’ll be my first trip to Kansai in many years — can’t wait!

And while I have you on the line talking about the Kansai beer scene, be sure to check out the 3rd Annual Craft Beer Festa Kyoto coming up May 13. (Facebook page)

We will be sending beers and maybe even a brewer (although not me, I’ll be in the States for my daughter’s college graduation). Stop by and say hello — or at least have a beer!

Cheers,

Chris

Follow us: Facebook / Twitter / Google+

Howdy, Chris here.

Some of you may remember earlier this year we released a handpump beer, Chris’s Garden Hop Ale, featuring homegrown hops from Numazu Fishmarket Taproom Beer Manager Chris’s home garden. Well, Chris is chomping at the bit to get some more hops going, but his garden space is limited. So when friends in Kobe — Kobebrewer and Catfish, thanks! — sent me some hop rhizomes (basically roots), I passed them on to Chris. Since his garden is a bit too small to handle so many hops, Chris decided to hand them over to Carpenter Nagakura-san to plant in his land in Heda, just south of Numazu.

Last Sunday, Chris went out to Heda to help the Carpenter prepare the plot and plant the hops. When he got there, he found a promising but unprepared garden.

An hour or so of removing old branches and debris and they had the beginnings of a garden. Time for the hops to be planted.

Personally I think the Carpenter is going to be shocked when the hops start growing — the poles he put up are nice, but need to be three or four times higher. Anyway, three or four Centennial hop rhizomes got planted out at Heda.

Rather than mix the hops up (forgetting which ones were where), the Carpenter decided to take the Cascade and Sterling hops back to his home to grow there. In the meantime, Taproom Chris took the Magunum back to his house, put it in a planter and brought it to the brewery to grow against the river retaining wall right just across the street from the entrance.

That gives us Cascade at Chris’s house, Centennial at the Carpenter’s farm, more Cascade and Sterling at his home and Magnum at the brewery. The plan is to grow these hops this year and then transplant them to our new brewery site in Izu City next year. Within a year or two, beer fans can look forward to some fresh hop and homegrown hop beers coming out of Baird. Can’t wait!

But while we wait, I’ll post updates occasionally as our hops grow and produce those green nuggets we all love . . . and need.

Cheers,

Chris

Follow us: Facebook / Twitter / Google+

Howdy, Chris here.

What’s going on in the US craft beer world! First we hear that Sierra Nevada is opening a new brewery in North Carolina. Soon after that, New Belgium announced their own new brewery project in the same area. And now comes word that Lagunitas will build a second brewery in Chicago. I guess it makes sense in the States where “exporting” from east to west and vise versa costs a lot, both monetarily and environmentally. Well, congratulations to these three excellent craft breweries. I can’t wait to try your new fresher beers when I head back to Michigan in the future — with “head back” meaning “go for a visit”.

As we get busier and busier, I’m finding myself doing more and more things that I never thought I’d have to do. Like repairing labeling machines, reconfiguring semi-automatic bottlers, rebuilding kegs, doing emergency (and temporary) repairs on pipes & pumps and whatever else needs to be done to keep us running smoothly. Some things I can’t do anything about, and that’s kind of frustrating — I often know what the problem is and I know the solution is quite simple, but I just don’t have the skills (or confidence) to give it a try. Guess I should have paid more attention in those science and engineering classes, huh?

Our own new brewery project is moving ahead slowly and surely. It looks like we’ll sign the contract for the land by the end of this month. And then things will move quickly. Our original hope was to open the new place by spring next year, but as with most projects this size, delays are inevitable. Summer looks more practical. But you never know.

I’ve mentioned several changes that have been happening in the brewery and our Taprooms over the past few months — new look for our kegs, new glassware and menus, new coasters, etc. Another change that’s coming in the near future: new casks for our handpump real ales. Until now, we’ve been using old Hoff-Stevens kegs that were popular back in the 60s.

But we’ll be phasing them out as soon as our new real ale pins come in. So what will we do with the old kegs? We’re hoping to sell them to one or two of the small brewpubs that are opening up around Japan in increasing numbers. The old Hoff-Stevens kegs are easy to clean and perfect for a small brewery that has limited space. (If you’re interested, let us know!)

I’m getting tired of going to movies only to be assaulted by advertisements in the form of product placements. The latest instance of this is the new James Bond film. Apparently James has given up his shaken-not-stirred martini and will instead be drinking Heineken. I guess the $45 million product placement fee had just a little to do with his change of drinking habits. I also guess I won’t bother going to see the new James Bond film, although if he sipped on a Suruga Bay Imperial IPA I would most definitely go!

And finally, I love when brewers come to visit our brewery. Over the past several weeks we’ve had James, a brewer from Canada; Mark, Ray & Anthony, who have a brewery in planning in Okinawa; and Taguchi-san, head brewer at Yo-Ho Brewing up in Nagano. Really we always enjoy showing people around our little slice of heaven, but when it’s a brewer, it’s extra special. Can’t wait to see who comes next!

And that’s it for this addition of This and That. Remember to drink good beer!

Cheers,

Chris

Follow us: Facebook / Twitter / Google+