Professor Good Ales

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Written by Lucy Craft for NPR

Until recently, if you ordered Japanese beer, there weren’t many to choose from. Before the industry was deregulated in the 1990s, four major brewers — Asahi, Suntory, Sapporo and Kirin – controlled the manufacture of Japanese beer.

But the major brands’ domination is ebbing, for reasons that have as much to do with Japan’s ancient history as with its evolving palates. And now some traditional sake brewers are ditching the tradition and trying their hand at craft beer brewing.

From a dusty country road about 100 miles north of Tokyo rises the white-washed facade of a sake brewery. Here in the quiet town of Naka, the Kiuchi family has been brewing Japan’s ancient rice wine for seven generations, since the time of the shoguns.

But these days, the beverage rolling off Kiuchi’s production line would make its 19^th century founders squirm. The brewery is now a leading maker of micro-beer.

“That building furthest away used to produce sake,” says vice president Youcichi Kiuchi as he shows me around. “Now it’s only for brewing beer.”

The humid air inside the newly expanded plant is fragrant with malt and wheat. After being in the beer business for just 15 years, the company will produce more than 250,000 gallons of craft beer this year, earning about $8 million. Half of that is destined for pubs and supermarkets in the United States.

Kiuchi Brewery is among scores of Japanese sake makers that have branched into craft beer. The most successful have seen year-on-year growth of as much 40 percent, in the face of a long, slow decline for sake.

Ry Beville, publisher of The Japan Beer Times, says that demand for craft beer is unprecedented.

“A lot of people are saying 2012 is the year of craft beer in Japan,” he says. “You’re seeing an explosion of craft beer bars and restaurants in Tokyo. There’s over 100. All across the country, they’re popping up every week.”

For Youichi Kiuchi, shifting into beermaking was not just a savvy business move, but an act of personal liberation. Making beer, he says, has literally changed his life.

“Making sake is like judo or flower arranging – you’re judged by how well you stick to the rules; there’s no margin for improvisation,” Kiuchi says. “But beer is about doing what you want. It’s fun to make and sell. Sake is hard to make and tough to sell.”
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Written by Jamie McGee for The Nashville Business Journal

From the man who brought Nashville the East Nashville Beer Festival, 12 South Winter Warmer and Brew at the Zoo, now comes a new beer event — this time on wheels.

Matt Leff, founder of events company Rhizome Productions, launches the Nashville Brew Bus on Nov. 3, transporting craft beer lovers from breweries to brewpubs to bars serving locally brewed beer in a motor coach.

“Any major city with a good beer scene has some form of a brew bus,” Leff said. “In the past two years, we’ve seen great growth” in the Nashville craft beer market.

That growth includes the opening of Fat Bottom Brewing in East Nashville and Turtle Anarchy Brewing Co. in Franklin in the last two months, in addition to the opening in recent years of Jackalope Brewing Co., Calfkiller Brewing Co. and Blackstone Brewing Co., which recently restarted its bottling and distribution efforts.

Leff’s tour will begin at the Flying Saucer and include stops at three to four breweries where participants can sample different beers. Participants will also stop at a craft beer bar, such as 3 Crow Bar, 12 South Taproom, M.L. Rose, etc., or a brew pub, such as Boscos Restaurant & Brewery or Blackstone Restaurant & Brewery. Food and a free pint will be included in the package, which Leff anticipates will be close to $45.
Continue reading “Bottoms Up! Local Brew Bus Launches in November”

Written by Robert H. McCauley for MetroWestdailynews.com

A famous quotation often attributed to Ben Franklin holds, “Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.” The relationship between beer and politics has been an old, though not always honorable one. Throughout much of the early days of our country, when public sanitation was not a given, alcoholic beverages were significantly safer to drink than water. Often times, the beverage of one’s choice could be seen as a political statement. Thomas Jefferson was actually criticized for favoring French wines over domestically produced beer or whiskey.

During much of the nineteenth century, when the secret ballot was not universal, campaigns were not above plying potential supporters with free beer in exchange for their support at the polls. It was probably no accident that two of the greatest political reform movements of that era were women’s suffrage and temperance – the latter of which eventually resulted in the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution that prohibited the production, importation, or sale of “intoxicating” beverages. Unfortunately, despite prior assurances to the contrary, beer was also outlawed, along with liquor and wine under Prohibition.
Continue reading “McCauley: The President’s Politics of Beer”

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Continue reading “Brewpubs, Breweries and Tasting Rooms: Hair of the Dog, Portland, Oregon”

This may, or may not, work well once it posts. Seemed to have a stalling problem that varied as to how far it would go. Still: interesting.