Mike Grant, Jason Koehler, Ryo Suzuki, John Chambers

Three foreign devils, as they jokingly refer to themselves. Working their hot ovens to bring you mouth-watering, deep dish pizza, they further entice you with sinfully good beer to accompany it. A visit to the establishments where they practice their devilcraft feels a lot more like a trip to heaven than one to hell.

Sans horns and tails, John Chambers, Mike Grant and Jason Koehler, owners of DevilCraft, are the devils we’re talking about. Anyone living in the Kanto area that hasn’t been to either of their restaurants in Kanda or Hamamastu-cho is definitely missing out. Their Chicago-style deep dish pizza and exceptional craft beer menu have made their establishments very popular destinations for foodies and beer fans alike. Pizza and beer is a classic American combination. It’s kind of like wine and cheese, or sake and sashimi. DevilCraft owes much of its success to this fantastic pairing, but that was not the way they originally drew up their plans.

Chambers and Koehler met about seven years ago as frequent participants in the craft beer gatherings of the day–events at Popeye’s or the JCBA festivals. Both had homebrewing backgrounds and were “kindred spirits,” as Koehler puts it. They often discussed the idea of opening a brewery. They were hoping to find another like-minded partner to share in the workload and the funding, but that third member eluded them for some time.

Between 2007-08, Mike Grant was homebrewing like a man possessed–nearly every week. Even then he was very focussed on the science and water analysis, tinkering with his tap water to match different styles of beer. It’s something he does with every brew now. He decided to enter some of his creations in a homebrew competition and came away with a few awards. Chambers and Koehler took notice and sought him out. They had found the third member of their team.

The trio originally planned to open a production brewery in the countryside, but finding the kind of space they wanted in the price range they needed proved too challenging. This setback ended up being a blessing in disguise. The affordable spots they found were all smaller restaurant-type spaces that could potentially house a small brewing system. They decided to alter their model to focus on the small brewpub concept.

For a number of reasons, this became more and more appealing to them. They figured that out in the countryside they really wouldn’t be able to attract many customers and they would all have a very long commute, so they took their idea to downtown Tokyo. They decided to put the brewing on hold and simply buy and sell quality craft beer on tap until their income could support the next step.

“Baby steps,” Grant says. “Baby steps…” That was their mantra. None of the men had been seriously involved in the restaurant business. They didn’t have a whole lot of professional brewing experience either. Koehler spent about two years learning the ropes at Aizu Beer (now closed), studying under John Schultz, and had taken courses at the Siebel Institute in Chicago. Grant had volunteered some time at Sankt Gallen doing bottling, cleanup and cellar work. Chamber’s experience was solely with homebrewing. But sticking to a conservative business plan and their philosophy of one incremental step at a time, they’ve made everything work rather smoothly for first timers.

The biggest surprise was undoubtedly the success of the pizza. While Koehler was studying at Siebel he got hooked on Chicago-style pizza and never shook the itch. When he moved from a tiny apartment into a house about six and a half years ago, he imported an oven to start honing his pizza-making skills. That would pay big dividends when they launched DevilCraft Kanda.

Grant tells us, “We never predicted that the deep dish would be the thing that would help us take off. I never dreamed there would be this much demand for it. I’m glad I was wrong.” They originally offered classic style pizza as well, but the deep dish was so incredibly popular they decided to focus on it alone. They had expectations of hitting their break-even point around six months after opening, but with word spreading quickly about a rather unique style of pizza, that time was halved.

Another plan that never came to fruition was the addition of the brewing area on the third floor. Structurally it seemed less and less feasible and the men realized that removing customer seating space simply made poor business sense, especially in downtown Tokyo. With profit margins looking good, the discussion of a second location was underway.

The Hamamatsu-cho location opened in the summer of 2013 and was a success from the start. Funding it entirely with the profits from the Kanda pub and private investments, they had no need to visit a bank. Once again the original design included space for on-premise brewing, but once again the need for customer space won out. Chambers explains it very rationally, “You take away customer space and you’re really throwing money away. We started looking at how many customers we could seat and what those customers were bringing us per day and realized that adds up pretty quickly.”

Having a full house on most nights is not something any restaurant owner is likely to complain about. But still, they were anxious to get brewing. Checking their enthusiasm until the time was right, they kept on the lookout for a place where they could finally open a brewery. Early in 2015, they found an old machine press shop in Shinagawa-ku not far from either of their pubs that was a perfect fit. In the same way that the Kanda restaurant funded DC Hamamatsu-cho, their second restaurant provided a good portion of the money for the new brewery and again a trip to the bank was avoided.

In early September, with the ink barely dry on their brewing licence, no time was wasted getting down to the business of making beer. Their new 3.5 barrel system was revved up and ready to go and the first kegs were tapped on Halloween, appropriate for a group of devils. Though they are three distinct personalities, brewing by committee seems to work well for them with little argument during the recipe formulation process.

Since the launch of DC Kanda, there has been a fourth key person involved: Suzuki Ryo. Now an “irreplaceable” member of the team according to the three founders, he moved up from a floor employee at DC Kanda, to beer manager of both restaurants, to a core member of the brewing team. He now spends most of his time at the brewery as a utility player they can lean on for anything from brewing and delivering kegs to cleaning the brewing equipment.

Visiting on a brew day, the men look like little kids at their own birthday parties. They are visibly having fun. When asked how excited they are to be making beer after roughly five years of waiting, Grant smiles and says, “We’re just ecstatic. I think we all love the process. And the way the final product makes people feel, not only the alcohol itself, but seeing people enjoy hand-crafted brew that we made–how awesome is that?”

During the American Craft Beer Experience festival last June, Bill Covaleski of Victory Brewing (see article pg 40) visited DC Hamamatsu-cho and plans were made for a collaboration brew. At the end of November, Chambers and Koehler visited Victory to make that a reality. They brewed a red IPL in the 6%ABV range using an all German malt bill. Expect it to arrive in Japan in late February or early March for your consuming pleasure.

If you are looking to sample DevilCraft’s brews, they are currently only available on tap at their two locations, though someday that will certainly change. As of the writing of this article they were on brew #15 and no two have been the same. They have brewed mainly American style ales, but have also thrown in a California common lager and a schwarz. Reviews from customers, our staff among them, have been very positive.

It’s looking like maybe it’s time to give the devils their due. If you end up selling your soul, at least for one evening, we won’t blame you.

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.