Summer 2012
It’s been a very busy season for beer so far. We start with the Kyoto Beer Festival in May. Organized by the four Kyoto breweries and Yamaoka liquor store, the festival this year spread from the park where it’s been hosted the past two years into the adjoining shopping arcade. Beer servers were stationed along the arcade. Such a natural setting lent the festival a lively air and we hope to see more craft beer events like this.
The Keyaki Hiroba Spring beer festival is another example. Held outside in a well-trafficked plaza, this four-day event is quickly evolving into one of Japan’s most popular craft beer festivals. In a very promising sign, it draws mostly from outside regular devotees to the craft beer scene. Now if the everyday folk would only give up drinking crappy happoshu the other 364 days of the year and stay committed!
Craft Beer Week in Tokyo kicked off in usual fashion at the end of May with the Beer Rise Festival in Ebisu. That very same weekend, however, a massive Oktoberfest finished up in Hibiya Park, while Craft Beer Live had a rowdy two days in Osaka. Overlapping festivals look to be inevitable as the industry matures. With some breweries sending beer to multiple events, organizers will have to differentiate themselves by including other attractions. Good music and more food seem like a good start.
Young hula dancers are nice, too. Oh hello Tanabata Beer Fes in lovely little Toyama city. One of our favorite festivals, this year’s gala again didn’t disappoint by any means. Fujizakura, coming hot off its gold medal at World Beer Cup, stole the crown for most beer sold from local host Johanna Beer. Minoh, also a gold medal winner at WBC, squeaked into a strong third. Such internal competition among brewers, with results announced over beers later in the evening, is yet another fun aspect of the event. Baeren and Coedo were two surprise attendees—they haven’t traditionally participated in festivals, but we hope this is the start of something new.
At Tanabata, we ran into Yoko and Shigekazu Yamaoka, who recently married. Yoko has been a frequent volunteer at festivals and Shigekazu runs the Yamaoka liquor store mentioned above. The marriage sounds like a beer dynasty in the making. Congrats!
The import game is really heating up these days, with two new importers, AQBevolution and Evergreen Imports LLC, introducing more American craft along with stalwarts Nagano Trading and Ezo Beer. Are domestic brewers concerned about the stiff competition? Perhaps they shouldn’t be, as Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong are expressing huge interest in importing Japanese craft. The question remains whether Japanese breweries will have the capacity to meet the demand. Tank-makers, be ready!
This article was published in Japan Beer Times # () and is among the limited content available online. Order your copy through our online shop or download the digital version from the iTunes store to access the full contents of this issue.
