Although cities like San Diego, CA and Asheville, NC grab headlines as meccas of America’s ongoing craft beer movement, the Pacific Northwest is actually one of America’s most established strongholds of delicious, hand-crafted beer. According to statistics from the Brewers Association, in many parts of this corner of America, more people drink craft beer than don’t, and the favorite style is an IPA. In such a robust and competitive market, you have to be good to succeed, and few have succeeded quite like Sound Brewery.
Headed by Mark Hood, the brewery is only about five years old. In that short span of time, however, Sound Brewery has managed to garner a handful of prestigious awards and is already on the cusp of opening a much larger new brewery to satisfy the surging demand for its wide array of beers. Part of that demand is coming from Japan.
For nearly fifteen years prior to going professional, Hood was an award-winning homebrewer with a keen interest in Japan because of his career in the computer gaming industry–a job that even took him to Japan for work multiple times over the years. When he and his team began establishing a sales strategy for their brewery, Japan was immediately a part of the plan. Interestingly, this ties back to his homebrewing background.
While Sound Brewery could conceivably sell all of its product into the local market, Hood notes that because of tastes there, they would necessarily have to produce a lot more IPAs and IIPAs. That, in turn, would entail fewer varieties of the other styles that they are passionate about making.
Hood explains, “Homebrewing has really informed how we think about beer. When you homebrew, you don’t worry about marketability, only about quality and the styles that you want to make.”
And to make those other styles, they needed to look for markets elsewhere. Japan became one of the thankful recipients of their beers.
Don’t be mistaken; Sound Brewery still makes some great IPAs and strong beers typically associated with the U.S. West Coast. But their real identity is marked by diversity. The brewery’s slogan is “Tradition Liberated”. In other words, Hood and his team want to use the history of brewing and styles to guide them, but they don’t want to be tied down to the particulars. They want to experiment and innovate. And that they do. Some of their recent styles have included a tripel (Triple Entendre), a kristalweizen (Sommerweizen) and massive “pale quadruple (Entendez Noel, at 11.8%!).
Beer fans interested in trying these beers should definitely come out to the American Craft Beer Experience event in Tokyo and/or Osaka. Mark Hood will be in attendance. Additionally, there are several satellite events. Hood will be at Goodbeer Faucets (Shibuya) on the evening of Thursday, the 18th along with other breweries participating in the festival. On Friday from 2pm to 5pm, he will be at the press event at Devil Craft Hamamatsucho, and then again there later in the evening. Finally, after ACBE on Sunday in Osaka, he will be at an after-party for Sound Brewery at Fujiyama.
