The Joy of Craft Drink Making

I brew craft beer at a company called TRYPEAKS. We operate as what you might call an OEM, developing recipes and outsourcing the manufacturing to factories. I launched a crowdfunding campaign in 2018 and founded the company in 2019.

The catalyst was in 2018 when I quit my job and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I climbed it having already decided to start a business when I returned. I didn't think about what I would do; I intended to do whatever came to mind when I descended.

On Kilimanjaro, Kilimanjaro beer is served when you finish the descent. Just as I was thinking about what to do next, the beer appeared. When we toasted, I took it as a sign: "Do this" (laughs).

You found it quite close by (laughs).

Exactly. I had been helping launch a bar while working as an office worker, so beer was a relatively familiar field for me.

I started a sake brewery called "haccoba" in Odaka, Minamisoma City, Fukushima Prefecture, and have been brewing since 2021. We primarily make rice-based alcohol, but we ferment other ingredients along with the rice. In the media, it's called "craft sake" and is sometimes introduced as a new genre.

While it is currently prohibited under the Liquor Tax Act, Japan originally had a culture of brewing alcohol at home. Among the few countries in the world where people cannot brew their own alcohol, I have always felt that Japanese people have been made to forget the joy of sake brewing.

If you look at recipe books from the era of home brewing, everyone used to brew alcohol freely. They would add local fruits and herbs along with rice, and even use grains like foxtail millet or barnyard millet. I brew every day with the desire to reclaim that joy of "brewing because I want to drink it."

I started my company in 2019 to produce and sell craft cola. I currently handle two main drink projects. One is a craft cola company called "Tomo Cola." The other, "Japan Kusaki Research Centers and Institutes," produces not only drinks but also alcohol and other products using edible plants that grow wild in the mountains of Japan.

I originally worked in marketing. Around 2018, while researching the drink market, I wondered what might come after craft gin and beer, and I arrived at craft cola. First, I made homemade craft cola and proposed it to a client as a new business. I've always liked spices and herbs and experimented with them; while the client liked it, it didn't come to fruition. I thought, "This is so good, why aren't we doing it?" and decided to start it myself.

My long-time hobby of searching for wild plants eventually led me to start making craft cola, but around the same time I announced "Tomo Cola," a brand in Tokyo called Iyoshi Cola also launched. I started because I thought it would work, but I was surprised that someone else was thinking of the obscure concept of "craft cola" at the exact same time.

Have you been searching for wild plants since you were a child?

Yes. Cola is made with spices and herbs from East and Southeast Asia, but I thought it could also be made with Japanese ingredients. At the same time, I felt that just making cola wasn't enough, so I started Japan Kusaki Research Centers and Institutes as a company that could effectively utilize Japanese plants.

What I found interesting about making craft cola was discovering a pattern among people who drink alcohol. It's the mindset of "I actually want to drink non-alcoholic beverages, but I feel like I'm losing out with soft drinks, so I drink alcohol." When I served craft cola at a friend's wedding, quite a few people chose craft cola over alcohol.

When I asked why, they said that even for a non-alcoholic drink, "craft" gives it a sense of being special. Unlike orange juice or oolong tea, it doesn't feel inferior to alcohol. I felt that craft could have potential as a high-end line for non-alcoholic drinks.

True, ordinary cola feels like it's just diluted syrup.

That's why I was curious about "craft sake." This is also a new category, isn't it?

Craft sake is classified as "other brewed liquors."

I had the impression that craft sake also spread all at once. The brewers are friendly with each other, and the way everyone tries to work together is interesting and different from the existing sake industry.

I think a big reason craft sake gained attention was that it coincided with the trend of D to C (Direct to Customer), where manufacturers sell directly to customers. At that time, players appeared in various genres, like Takashi Yamashita's chocolate brand Minimal (February 2021 issue of this magazine) or Takuma Inagawa's sake brand WAKAZE (October 2021 issue). My starting with crowdfunding was also influenced by WAKAZE.

Before I started haccoba, I was invited by WAKAZE to work with them. I had heard they were starting sake brewing in Paris, and while joining WAKAZE was an option, I decided I wanted to do it myself.

It feels like craft sake has gained mainstream acceptance since WAKAZE, but the naming of this genre is still in flux. People wonder if "craft sake" is the right term.

Are there other names for it?

No, there aren't. haccoba was the third brewery of "other brewed liquors," following WAKAZE and the Konohanano Brewery in Asakusa, but we were the first to include "Craft Sake Brewery" in our brand name.

The reason we call ourselves a "Craft Sake Brewery" is that we envision establishing breweries overseas. Overseas, many breweries making rice-based alcohol call themselves "Craft Sake Breweries." Then, "craft sake" saw more growth as a genre within Japan than expected.

The first drink to use the "craft" label was American craft beer, right?

That's right. For craft beer, the Brewers Association was formed, and from there, the movement to build a market together spread. We learned about that and want to build and energize the market through an association of peers.

Is there such a community for craft cola?

The year before last, we started a web media outlet called "Craft Cola Wave" with Iyoshi Cola to serve as an official base for broadcasting craft cola culture. The factory in Osaka that Tomo Cola outsources its OEM to now produces cola for 50 different companies.

An industry is being born.

However, the marketing side is still weak. Recently, cafes and other places have been making their own craft cola.

Since the frequency of seeing it has increased, a small market may have formed. That said, even if small brands gather to try and liven things up, a major beverage manufacturer could overtake those sales in an instant.

In the US, craft beer is properly defined. It's three things: "small," "independent," and "traditional." But in Japan, major beverage manufacturers have broken that.

Actually, the Japanese beer industry has a history of failure with "ji-biru" (local beer). While trying to rebrand that, the definition remained vague, and major companies started calling their products "craft beer."

Craft cola is similar. As expected, when major companies released products labeled "craft," they were just ordinary colas with a little spice powder sprinkled in. I think selling that in convenience stores is the downfall of the genre. It's disappointing to borrow the word for marketing without showing respect for the culture.

Exactly. Most are large-scale manufacturers, and rather than tradition, they use methods optimized for mass production.

There's also the issue of consumers. Even if it's a fake, they'll bite because they've "heard of it." But there's no way craft can be bought for 100 or 200 yen (laughs).

Right. In that sense, I think sake is the original Japanese craft. Even overseas, there is trust that craft is small, independent, and traditional.

That's why when I see the current acceptance of craft in Japan, I feel some resistance to calling it "craft sake." My personal desire isn't necessarily to establish "craft sake" as a genre. After all, almost all rice-based alcohol made in Japan is "craft sake."

Brewery craftsmen might get annoyed. Previously, when I visited a leading Japanese sake brewery, the president was indignant because people were saying, "That place has commercialized, so it's no longer the real thing."

The idea that "if it's commercialized, it's not the real thing" is strange.

Even though the product is getting better, it seems a loss of fans is occurring. It's like when fans of a successful musician start saying, "He's not the guy he was when I was a fan" (laughs). Compared to sake, you don't hear those voices with beer. No one says they hate Yona Yona Ale.

Is Yona Yona Ale a craft beer?

Personally, I see it as maintaining a craft balance. Though it might not be "small" anymore.

The definition of "small" sometimes changes to suit convenience. As the pioneers get big, the definition of scale is changed to match.

Craft cola seems to have relatively few players, but are there instances of it leading to misguided consumption?

Anyone can make cola, so there are almost no barriers to entry. In the last two years or so, the number of brands has increased to about 150.

Even though Tomo Cola is manufactured via OEM, we have also taken on the role of an OEM provider. We develop recipes upon request and handle manufacturing and delivery. Recently, when people say they want to start, I sometimes reply, "I think it's too late." Even if the number of brands increases further, it will just reach a saturation point, and if competition advances, it's a situation where brands will easily be weeded out.

What will remain are brands loved in their regions. In Kikaijima, Kagoshima, TOBA TOBA Cola has taken root. It's a small island, but you can drink it anywhere from the airport to izakayas. If it grows into something like that, it will never disappear.

In this situation, Tomo Cola recently started exporting to the US. However, we label it as "Yuzu Cola" rather than "Craft Cola." This is because over there, people normally make cola by hand.

I see. In regions where "craft cola" is rooted, "craft" doesn't become a brand.

Right. When I looked into it, there wasn't a single place in the world promoting "craft cola."

So it's a term coined in Japan?

It seems so. Is craft beer called "craft beer" in the US too?

It's called that in the US too. In Japan, whether it's beer or gin, "craft XX" has spread while drifting away from the original definition.

It's a strange thing. If that's the case, how far can we go in calling something craft? In Japan right now, everything somehow passes as "craft XX."

I think craft is also a counter-culture. Craft beer also carries the message against the oligopoly of major manufacturers: "Beer was originally diverse, wasn't it?" There is an aesthetic in returning to diversity, and I think that's the underlying interest in craft.

Many people call it a return to roots. Drinks that were originally made and consumed individually in regions or homes were later mass-produced and mass-consumed. This is a movement to democratize that once again, isn't it?

I'm curious about how far drinkers will follow things like craft sake. Originally, alcohol was just alcohol; there were no genres. We are currently making alcohol with hops, but in old Japan, people also added hops (karahanasou) when making doburoku.

Homebrewers were simply pursuing making delicious drinks. When that becomes a product and is consumed by consumers, categorization progresses so that it's easier for the drinker to receive. In that process, I worry that if we dig too deep into craft and return too much to the essence, no one will be able to follow.

Furuya-san, have you ever gone too far into the details and had customers stop following you?

I don't make overly elaborate things. That's because I've always thought craft should be a medium. Actually, I myself didn't originally like cola (laughs).

However, craft has the freedom to mix anything. When you add local fruits or herbs, there are people who become interested in the drink even if they aren't interested in the ingredients themselves. I think I'm probably only interested in creating things that are easy to understand as a medium.

Looking at craft sake from that perspective, I'm curious about how you communicate with people who don't have high literacy regarding alcohol. Craft sake has an image of being drunk by gourmets, but for those who aren't, it might be misunderstood as "just sake with added fragrance." What kind of efforts are you making, Sato-san?

That is exactly the challenge. Right now, it feels like we are only reaching people who already love food or have a strong curiosity about taste. How to reach people beyond that is a major issue.

Craft sake is often served as pairings in high-end restaurants, right? I'm sure many people discover it there.

What I value in communication from the producer's side is saying, "This is what it was like back when people made sake at home." Of course, modern breweries have their own place, so I'm not trying to claim that only pre-commercialization sake-making matters. However, I've been saying since the beginning that, in a sense, that is the essence. When I say that, not only customers but also chefs are very pleased.

It's good to have it served in places where it can be properly explained.

Do you want to broaden your base?

Since it's easier to drink than ordinary sake, I believe we can broaden the base among the younger generation.

Do you ever struggle with whether to broaden the base or dive deep into a niche?

I'm constantly agonizing over the balance between the two.

It's the same with craft beer. Sometimes the product you think is your best work ends up selling the least (laughs).

That's interesting. The more effort you put into the details, the less it sells.

There's a style called English Pale Ale—it's bitter with a slight caramel-like sweetness, the kind of beer you sip slowly. I thought it was perfectly executed, but... (laughs).

Conversely, something I made to be easy for everyone to drink, similar to Hoegaarden, sold incredibly well. Japanese preferences are tricky.

I once did an experiment where I gave friends three identical beers but with different colored labels. When I asked, "How was it?" everyone said, "This specific one is the most delicious."

Fascinating. You can't rely on their word.

A few people said, "Aren't they all the same?" but most people insisted, "This one was the best."

That's a mean experiment (laughs).

Hearing that, I realized many people drink based on the "vibe." So lately, while still obsessing over the taste, I'm interested in how to create that vibe.

How do you create the flavor of your beer?

I basically don't brew it myself. Since I often make beer as souvenirs for restaurants or merchandise for sports teams, I first enter that community and serve about 200 types of beer available in Japan to the stakeholders. I ask for their preferences, and the team turns the most popular ones into a recipe. I brew in a way that everyone can feel satisfied with.

Doesn't it become a bit like a majority vote where the flavor gets blurred?

Sometimes it does. With this method, you don't get anything with a sharp edge. Conversely, if you brew alone, the taste becomes too geeky and ends up not selling.

That's how it goes, isn't it?

There are parts of my brewing process that I changed specifically to avoid that kind of self-satisfaction. If it doesn't function as a business to some extent, it just becomes a hobby. That balance is difficult.

In the case of cola, almost anything can become an ingredient, so I often get orders like "I want you to use this." For example, skins of organic bananas that would be discarded, or whey produced when making butter. I get quite a few unusual orders. I used to create all the flavors myself, but recently I've added a process to have them verified.

I'm self-taught in flavor creation, and I studied perfumery and chemistry, but I eventually realized it all comes down to the tongue and nose. If you keep tasting various materials, your nose gets trained. I create flavors while cultivating my own senses.

It's the same for us. It's about how much breadth and depth of taste we possess. We consume food, drinks, everything, looking for hints.

On the other hand, there are challenges. At haccoba, the basic workflow is that I always decide the flavor and my wife does the final check. I'm planning to start a brewery in Belgium soon, which means I'll be leaving Japan. There will be periods when I can't touch the taste of the sake, so I'm trying to share the range of taste with the members, but this is very difficult.

What kind of ingredients do you use at haccoba?

We use spices, fruits, and herbs, and we even use whey, which was mentioned earlier. Basically, we brew what we want to drink.

But that's different from just brewing whatever we feel like making. If it stops being something I want to drink as a consumer, it can turn into a purely technical pursuit. Especially with craft products that have a certain level of commerciality, we aren't doing pure art, so I try to maintain my perspective as a drinker.

Of course, before thinking about what we want to drink, it's also valid to intuitively think that adding a certain ingredient would make it delicious. But for us to do that, we try to first ask ourselves what meaning it has for us.

Is the idea of brewing something just because it seems like it will sell acceptable?

For us, it's a "no." We want to believe that what we are doing is the essence of sake-making, and we want others to think so too. From that perspective, it's not something that can be settled by saying we made it because it would sell.

I don't go as far as exploring raw materials. However, I do keep a mental stock of beer flavors. I think systematizing taste is difficult, but for example, I can verbalize it as "a feeling like this brand's flavor but with a little less of that." I want to increase that vocabulary. Beer has many variables, such as the types of malt blended, the amount of hops, and the timing of adding them. I've drunk enough to be able to direct those aspects.

As for what materials to use to achieve that taste, I leave that to the craftsmen. Besides the craftsmen, there are people in our team who can write recipes for the beers they've drunk, so I've decided to rely completely on them for that part.

We also value collaboration. This is because we want an "amateur" perspective to prevent it from becoming the producer's ego. There's also the idea of making the adoption of pure opinions from the drinker's side a part of the brand's mechanism.

So far, we've worked with a chocolate brand and Iyoshi Cola, for example. When we collaborate, they frankly ask, "Can you make this kind of sake?" The chocolate brand asked if we could put gateau chocolat in it.

The gateau chocolat didn't happen, but when people who aren't familiar with sake-making throw ideas at us, it broadens our range, making us think it might actually work. Collaborating with professionals from other fields isn't just fun; it's also significant because it allows us to have a system that prevents us from falling into ego. That's something I learned from craft beer culture.

In craft beer, makers collaborate and share fans, don't they?

Craft beer has some examples of successfully creating fan culture. Overseas, BrewDog is probably the best in the world, and in Japan, Yo-Ho Brewing's strategy with Yona Yona Ale is very clever.

Do you have a particular commitment to the location of the brewery or the materials?

Sake seems to have that. I wonder about beer. In my personal opinion, the past failure of "ji-biru" (local beer) is a big factor.

In the past, regional breweries would make beer for souvenir use and supply it to roadside stations. However, the quality was very low. It has improved now, but the public was left with the impression that local beer equals an inferior version. Based on that reflection, we try not to be perceived as "ji-biru."

On the contrary, we value having our roots in the local area. That's also why we started using hops (Karahanasou). In Tohoku, doburoku making using hops has traditionally been practiced.

The plant we actually use is Karahanasou, which grows in Japan. When we first thought about what we wanted to value, materials came to mind. So we connected with someone who owns a mountain in Akita and have continued to use that Karahanasou.

I don't know how far this method will work as production volume increases, but valuing the local community is also important from the standpoint of running a brewery with a base. I want to take the first step of a brewery that is loved in the region and lasts for 1,000 years. In Japan, breweries that have lasted for about 500 years are common, so several hundred years is a time scale that is normally conceivable.

For that reason, the local community and the regional natural environment are inseparable. If nature ends, sake-making ends too. It all relates to discerning the time scale.

I think that's why breweries all over Japan value their regions. When I talk to people who are the tenth or more generation of a brewery, they don't talk about the prosperity of their own generation. Everyone talks with an eye toward their grandchildren's generation. It's like, "We're doing this now because we want things to be like this 50 years from now."

Certainly, when running a brewery, the region is a major presence. TRYPEAKS' brewery is in Numazu, and while we value local relationships in B2B for OEM, we tend to separate things in B2C by not showing much local color.

We have 20 partner mountain owners across the country, from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Until now, we were just picking what grew on the mountains. However, recently there was an order to buy 5,000 kilograms of silver vine (matatabi) fruit per year, so we decided to start cultivating it as well.

Since we cultivate in cooperation with mountain owners, while being based in Tokyo, we have a strong attachment to the mountains in various regions. There are places where several regions have become our own "local."

There are two issues: whether the demand for what we are making now will be passed on to the next generation, and whether the manufacturing and cultivation will be passed on. The reason we ended up cultivating 5,000 kilograms of silver vine was also because the elderly man who organized the elderly women who had been picking it passed away. Suddenly, we lost contact with the women.

Transactions within personal relationships do not become an industry. Therefore, the industrialization of mountain products is a major challenge for us.

We have the same situation. We are discussing how to procure materials if it becomes difficult to secure a stable supply of Karahanasou.

We want to take on that kind of demand as a company.

Tomo Cola's best-selling brand uses mostly overseas ingredients. The citrus is all domestic, but for herbs and spices, we use imported cardamom and cinnamon. We also have a special edition made only with Japanese spices, but that can only be produced once a year, at most 2,000 liters. To increase this, we have to get involved in the production of raw materials. We've just started that part.

To stabilize the procurement of raw materials, it feels like we'll be doing manufacturing while also cultivating primary raw materials. Mr. Sato, why don't you create a Karahanasou field next to your brewery?

But making it an industry brings responsibility to future generations, doesn't it? There's also the question of whether the elderly women who were picking silver vine actually want to industrialize it. If industrialization goes too far, the balance of the mountain will be disrupted. It seems very difficult.

I think we can prevent industrialization from going too far. Basically, we only make the amount we need, so it's not that much. I think it would be good if we could create examples where a certain region is revitalized just a little bit by that.

Another challenge is that current raw material production has few such repertoires for earning. I want to create new industries by making things that are in demand.

Since we are able to use rice through relationships with local farmers, we are deepening those relationships with the intention of learning from them. We want to make it something farmers can properly earn from, so buying and selling at a fair price is the basis. We're also starting this year to have them make organic fertilizer from our sake lees and grow rice organically.

As for materials other than rice, for example, with hops, we use Western hops at the final stage of creating aroma and flavor. I want to do it with Japanese herbs, fruits, and spices, but compared to Western hops, the aroma of Karahanasou is very delicate. Whether you put it in or not, it doesn't result in a deliciousness that is easy for the general consumer to understand.

But if we are to pursue locality, we should brew with local materials. That is the goal of the culture we want to create. We haven't been able to go as far as entering the mountains ourselves to collect plants, so I definitely want to try. In that sense, I feel Ms. Furuya is doing something amazing.

But the reason hops are delicious is also because they have been selectively bred while being used in beer. I think Karahanasou has potential too.

Actually, ecologically speaking, cultivating hops in Iwate is nonsense. This is because the proximity of the colonies causes them to crossbreed with Karahanasou. If that happens, the Japanese species will disappear.

They get wiped out.

Exactly. Hazelnuts are being produced in Nagano now, but that's land where Japanese hazelnuts, called hashibami, originally grow. So if the colonies are close, the hashibami will disappear. The same thing is happening in Iwate.

Ideally, instead of making hops, I think we should just make Karahanasou delicious. But no one does that.

I see. Just because it's easy to grow doesn't mean growing it nearby is good ecologically.

They end up becoming hybrids. That is why I want to suggest that we start a selective breeding project for Karahanasou.

That sounds like a great idea. Karahanasou is truly delicate; it doesn't have the bitterness of hops, nor is its aroma particularly strong. However, just as Western hops have been selectively bred over time, the same might be possible for Karahanasou.

At first, I wondered why it was such a bad thing, but talking to botanists helped me understand just how serious it is. Foreign species are often strong, and they end up wiping out the native species.

Like largemouth bass (laughs).

Exactly. Invasive species have strong aromas, which likely means they have strong vitality as well. The individual plants are also large. When you pursue the craft of making drinks, you eventually face issues regarding ingredients, which leads to thinking about the state of the local vegetation.