00:00:06 John Daub: Welcome to Tokyo Ale Works. Wow, that's a beautiful pour. That looks great. That is a craft beer. Thank you.

00:00:21 John Daub: In this episode, we're going to be talking about Japan's booming craft beer industry with my friend here, Andrew Tang. He's a craft beer enthusiast. What is the name of your brand?

00:00:31 Andrew Tang: Taihei Yogan.

00:00:32 John Daub: Taihei Yogan. That's a website all about craft beer in Tokyo, all over the country. Over the last five years or so, craft beer places have been booming all over the city. I like to go to them, but I'm always finding something really unique, like this beer here. What is this?

00:00:51 Andrew Tang: This is a Kölsch, a German hybrid lager, made beautifully.

00:00:57 John Daub: Made beautifully. It is. It looks really clear. Now, this tap room is in Itabashi. I came here on the Mita line, about a five-minute walk from Shin-Itabashi Station. There's a couple of other stations. The Saikyo line from Ikebukuro. It's pretty convenient. I've noticed it's a pretty trendy area too, with a lot of new cafes and restaurants around the station area. So it's pretty neat to see a tap room here, not quite in Ikebukuro. But they have 22 taps on the wall, all of them with different kinds of beer. It's overwhelming because 20 years ago when I came to Japan, we only had four kinds of beer: Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo, and Suntory malts. Now there's 22 on this menu, including guest beers, and that's just here. There'll be other places with a lot more beers. How many craft beers are there in Japan, enthusiast Andrew?

00:02:11 Andrew Tang: Craft beers or craft beer breweries?

00:02:13 John Daub: Thousands upon thousands of craft beers here in Japan. And craft breweries, hundreds. 300-ish.

00:02:24 Andrew Tang: And this boom started—there's been maybe two booms. The first boom was around the 1990s. Japanese beer laws basically follow the German purity laws, with four basic ingredients plus some exceptions in Japan. In the 1990s they changed the law, allowing breweries to make 6,000 liters a year instead of 60,000. That's manageable for a startup.

00:03:25 John Daub: Interesting, because in the United States it's the opposite. Japan is always different. There's a cap in the US, but it's all about the tax man. Big breweries find ways to avoid taxes by changing ingredients from hops to chickpeas or whatever. They find shortcuts, and that makes the beers interesting, but they don't taste as good as normal beer. It's cheaper for the mainstream market. Price is still a bit high overall, but cheaper in the States, back home in Canada too. But the beers are getting better, and the latest boom was in the last five years. Huge number of new breweries, maybe 100 in the last three years.

00:04:41 John Daub: That's really good. We're just going to share this one. This is a Kölsch from a German recipe, German-style lager hybrid. We're going to go back in this livestream and give you a chance to take a look at where they make the beer here. It's all made on site, which is pretty cool. And you can make beer here too.

00:05:04 Andrew Tang: Let's go take a look.

00:05:21 John Daub: All right, let's go inside here. We might lose the signal because the Wi-Fi doesn't work all the way in here, but if we do, we'll go on to 4G.

00:06:00 John Daub: So this is what you would brew on. And then it goes into these tanks. You got a beautiful beer that they help you create a recipe for and everything. These are very small batches, 20-liter batches for customers to come in and make their own. They pay money, get 48 bottles, go through the whole process of brewing and learning how to do it. So you can come here to learn how to make beer and get 48 bottles out of these. Reserve early because it's quite popular.

00:06:46 Andrew Tang: Five minutes to get your reservation in when they start it.

00:07:00 John Daub: And these big boys, how much beer do they make? Usually about 100 liters, divided by 330 ml per bottle. How many bottles is that? 300 bottles.

00:07:32 Andrew Tang: Let's go take a look.

00:07:33 John Daub: It's interesting. This is like a laboratory, a hybrid of lab work and baking.

00:07:51 John Daub: These are kegs of beer here. They're empty. If they're full, they'll be refrigerated.

00:08:24 Andrew Tang: You have to keep beer in the fridge, otherwise it starts turning.

00:08:27 John Daub: Welcome back. We're doing some signal refreshes, going in different rooms. Each room is a little separate from the Wi-Fi. These are a lot bigger, more for the tap room. They make all their tap room beers here, lager beers. These are sold outside as well, 850 liters, yield about 750. 1600 pints of beer.

00:10:00 John Daub: If you work here, you could just open up the tap, right? No, nobody does that. It would explode from the pressure and weight. You can't do a Homer Simpson.

00:10:29 Andrew Tang: This is the brew system.

00:10:33 John Daub: This looks really expensive. Massive investment to make a tap room. With the industry booming, lots of potential, or is it too late?

00:11:11 Andrew Tang: For a brew pub, not too late. For production, you're pushing it. You've got to be really on your game, otherwise you won't last. Some are closing.

00:11:27 John Daub: Every guy I know dreams of opening a brewery. Guys want to brew beer. I'd love an Only in Japan beer, my own flavor through beer that brings people pleasure. It's a lot harder than you think.

00:11:53 Andrew Tang: The guy off screen brewed 80-some beers in one year. We've been brewing since May 2018, already 205 batches. Big system, batch 12 or 13 now.

00:12:28 John Daub: How long to make one batch from scratch? Three weeks: one day brewing, five to seven days fermentation, then dry hopping, conditioning, carbonating, a week to 10 days to clear. Average three to four weeks, depending on style. British styles faster, like ESB or Irish red in two and a half weeks.

00:13:37 John Daub: What do you do with the waste after? In central Tokyo, hard to recycle spent grain. Out in Saitama or countryside, farms take it. Sake industry recycles everything—my friend at a sake brewery uses dregs for cosmetics and chocolate. Here, some spent grain goes into burger buns and pretzels.

00:14:34 John Daub: Food and beer go together, so a tap room must have epic food. This one does. It's lunchtime.

00:14:48 Andrew Tang: You're still in Europe?

00:14:49 John Daub: Yeah, just back from Austria, Germany. This is the biggest tank, the hot liquor tank—just water. I just came from Christmas markets, got Glühwein on my mind. Really cool experience. They're allowing people to come in and make their own original brews in these 48-liter tanks. Gets the community involved.

00:15:47 John Daub: Let's go back in. Do you have anything else to show, Andrew?

00:15:52 Andrew Tang: No, we saw everything.

00:16:17 John Daub: We're back in the tap room. That was a pretty cool experience. Let's have a seat, try another drink. Heard the food is epic, and I'm hungry. How long for the burger?

00:16:44 John Daub: Haggis burger? That's awesome. Bacon avocado burger, classic. Look at that thick bacon, like little towers. S'more cheeseburger looks delicious—marshmallow on top? Unique. Crab house sandwich looks good too, full crab. We're going to get some of that. Shortcut C, lunch is on you—thank you. Normal barbecue sauce hamburger, comes with fries. Prices reasonable. Beer pretzels for 600 yen. Beer set, 100 yen off your beer for lunch if you get food. Dinner has a different menu, buffalo wings with whiskey spray.

00:18:44 John Daub: We're taking your questions about beer in Japan and brewing. I've known Andrew 14 years. We used to teach English together at Gaba. Sour memories, fun while it lasted. Let's order some burgers. Haggis burger sounds interesting—is it real stomach?

00:19:23 Andrew Tang: Sweet chili sour cream burger.

00:20:06 John Daub: Thank you guys. We've taken a look into where they make the beer. You can reserve online to brew your own—it takes three weeks in one of the small 48-liter tanks for 48 bottles. Pretty unique. Maybe I'll come back. If you want to see this burger, click like now. Let's get 250 likes. Subscribe to our channel.

00:21:11 John Daub: What makes a Japanese craft beer Japanese? Criteria? Ingredients? Name? If it has matcha? Japanese style is more subdued, nuanced flavors merged, like Japanese food—natural flavors as is. Ingredients like local fruits: mikan (mandarin orange), yuzu (citrus). Sansho (Japanese peppercorn). Unique: sake yeast in beer instead of traditional yeast. Experimentation like bonito flakes (katsuobushi) for complex flavor—love it or hate it, but it's Japan.

00:24:04 John Daub: Japanese beers have crazy names like in the US—"Smell My Finger," "Haze is Dead." Weirder the name, more I want to try. Japanese craft beer is 5-10 years behind the US. They have ACB, American Craft Beer Experience festival—best in Tokyo.

00:25:25 Andrew Tang: Behind in technology, ingredients—hops and malt storage issues. But to start: home brewing illegal in Japan over 1% alcohol, due to taxes. No home brewing association promotes it openly. Ingredients available, but hops imported—not great climate here, humid. Hokkaido a bit. Mostly from US, France, Germany, New Zealand.

00:28:00 John Daub: Importing adds to cost? Relatively, but importers handle bulk. Equipment from China or Portland, craft beer capital—Peter von Gomm's from there.

00:29:12 John Daub: We're short of 250 likes—Tencho's waiting. We hit 211, community comes through. They have Matcha IPA, Japanese Pale Ale—JPA.

00:29:59 Andrew Tang: Just pale ale with green tea—matcha makes it JPA.

00:30:30 John Daub: IBU 39.5—decimals in Japan. International Bittering Units, higher means more bitterness (nigai).

00:32:00 John Daub: Chat says haggis, local pale ale, Matcha JPA, Natsu no Yoru saison, cream ale, dark stout. You get local pale ale, Chinook. I'll get Matcha JPA.

00:33:14 Andrew Tang: Full pint.

00:33:20 John Daub: Half pint—I'm driving. (Excuse for salarymen.) Wow, that's the Matcha JPA. Not green—you need lots of matcha, overpowers flavor.

00:34:28 John Daub: Number 8 pour. Nice color. Why isn't JPA green? Lots of matcha overpowers. Half pint because driving. Little green tinge. Lightweight? Had Glühwein in Europe. Little head—English pour, more beer.

00:36:13 Andrew Tang: Local pale ale, Chinook hops—great bittering hop. Beautiful orange color.

00:36:35 John Daub: Matcha JPA, 5.8% alcohol, IBU 39.5. Nice, good bitterness but different dimension—hits back of tongue. Matcha? Imagination? Pinch of matcha like witches.

00:38:17 John Daub: Burgers here! Haggis burger tower. Where do you get haggis in Tokyo? Haven't had since Scotland 20 years ago. Haggis with potato and cheese on burger, bun with spent grain. Spray? Ardbeg whiskey on haggis, three times. Never seen that.

00:40:00 Andrew Tang: Love.

00:40:24 John Daub: Excited—never had haggis burger. Refreshing JPA. Yours maltier, sweet. Let's try. Itadakimasu. Cheers. Really good, soft. Haggis with potatoes so good.

00:43:04 John Daub: Happens every time—start eating, no one talks. Wash down with JPA or pale ale. Tokyo Ale Works a year and a half old, new big system this year. Will be a chain?

00:44:13 Andrew Tang: Year and a half. Only brewing here.

00:44:31 John Daub: Favorite here? 307 IPA, standard with different hops.

00:45:23 John Daub: Perfect burger needs good bread, coarse grind patty, fresh pickles. McDonald's mixes pickles in sauce now—awful. As kids, we'd flick pickles on windows.

00:48:25 Andrew Tang: Half pints to try more. Flights warm up—prefer pint warming slowly.

00:49:05 John Daub: Not a beer geek—get too picky. Like weird names like "Becky Smelled My Finger." If 375 likes, one more beer.

00:50:10 Andrew Tang: Taihei Yogan (T-A-I-H-E-I Y-O-G-A-N). Interviews, events, shop intros. Most videos English and Japanese, translate interviews. Introduce craft beer of Japan—brewers from States, Europe, Japan.

00:52:01 John Daub: Japanese gotten good. Check the site—go to Andrew for craft beer questions. Nice rare meat. Haggis cooked through. Scottish cuisine.

00:52:54 Andrew Tang: Pinball's Schwarzenegger—Last Action Hero.

00:53:08 John Daub: 40 likes from chug. Itabashi, north of Ikebukuro—why not Shibuya? Expensive. Owner owns building, Cask Village: whiskey shop next door, wine restaurant. Whiskey master, then beer barrels.

00:55:43 John Daub: Unique ingredients: sansho peppercorn, sake yeast. Hitachi Nest in Akihabara, Tokyo Station. Yokohama Brewer's Cup: love the beer, hate pole dancing and idols—not for beer fest.

00:59:21 Andrew Tang: Best festival twice a year: widest Japanese range—Keiki (?). Area with best craft beer? All. Tokyo water soft; IPA needs hard water with minerals, like sake regions.

01:01:29 John Daub: Industry saturated—no space left. Need top game, phenomenal taste, marketing. Can't make mediocre beer anymore.

01:03:05 Andrew Tang: Spike seltzer like chu-hai (shochu highball)—carbonated shochu with flavors, easy to drink.

01:04:24 John Daub: Don't drink much anymore—want special when I do. Best places for visitors? So many, hard to pick—different atmospheres.

01:05:11 Andrew Tang: Boom peaked, slowing, but will boom again—peaks and valleys.

01:06:00 John Daub: Hit 375—share half pint stout. I'm driving. Chat picks: Blastadoo dry stout.

01:09:03 John Daub: Schwarzenegger pinball—be gentle, don't tilt.

01:10:03 Andrew Tang: Dry stout—drier finish.

01:10:46 John Daub: No head—full half pint, perfect pour. Blastadoo, dry stout, 4% alcohol, 31 IBU. Sophisticated, coffee-like, slightly bitter, not overpowering, pleasant aftertaste. Lighter than Guinness, drier—Guinness creamier, heavier, nitro carbonation vs. CO2.

01:15:25 John Daub: Need Only in Japan IPA—what flavor? Raspberry for red logo? Original, makes you feel better.

01:16:27 John Daub: Thanks community—hit likes for craft beer runs. Andrew's knowledge, TaiheiYogan.com—link in description. Thanks Tokyo Ale Works for filming, beers. Questions in comments. Inside access to unique places. Logo's Tokyo landmarks with hop: Skytree, Tower, metro building. Communal Brewing. Subscribe, check site for Japan craft beer insight. Kanpai. Cheers.