When did you become passionate about craft beer?
It was a gradual process that began with German beer when I was 19. I was in college and living in a small apartment, and across the street was a small bar where the owner had a reputation for not asking for ID. I was quite young looking at the time, and timidly entered one day and asked for a beer. The owner turned out to be from Germany, and he asked “What kind of beer?” I had no idea what to order, so I said “A Miller.” He promptly said, “You don’t want a Miller, you want a Dinkel Acker!” Rather than refuse it, I took what he offered and ended up liking it rather a lot. Actually, I didn’t much care for typical American mass-market beer at the time, and after going to this guy’s bar, became a fan of European brews. I also had friends buy Anchor Steam and other Anchor beers for me, and enjoyed those as well.
I came to Japan in 1977, and pretty much enjoyed the Kirin Lager of the time, along with certain specialty brews like Kirin Mein Brau and Suntory Marzen, which are both long gone. During the 1980s, craft beer became more widespread in California, and during visits I enjoyed quite a lot of it, including Red Tail Ale from Mendocino County and other types of craft beer. Sierra Nevada appeared and I ended up liking that a lot. It wasn’t until 1995 that craft beer was made possible in Japan, and while I did like Echigo Beer at the time, most of the beers made from then until about 2000 were fairly lacking. When Baird Beer started up, things changed for the better, and his brews set the bar a lot higher in Japan
How did you receive your craft beer education? Did you attend any tasting courses?
I never took any courses, but I read a fair number of books and tried most all of the interesting beers I could get my hands on. I also did some home brewing in the mid-1980s. I basically got into home brewing so that I could be more knowledgeable about beer and write better about it. Around this time I got into Belgian beer quite enthusiastically, which opened up another beer world for me.
How long have you been writing about craft beer and what are some of the publications you have written for?
I wrote my first article about beer in 1983 for a magazine called BEER, which was published in Northern California for a couple of years before folding. Soon after, I became the Tokyo correspondent for the Celebrator Beer News (www.celebrator.com), also in California. I have contributed to a lot of beer books and magazines in the UK, and once wrote a rather long article about beer in Japan for All About Beer magazine in the US. From the early 1990s I started a newsletter in English for beer enthusiasts in Japan called Brews News, which has been carried on the Tokyo Food Page for a little over 10 years now. You can see it at www.bento.com/brews.html
Can you speak a little about your friendship with Michael Jackson?
It was more of a professional relationship than a friendship, but basically I contributed a lot of Japan information for several of his books, and in many I am listed as a contributor. He was certainly a very generous man in his support for good beer, and perhaps the most remarkable thing about him was his power as a good public speaker. He made the subject very fascinating, and was a joy to listen to. On several of his visits I took him around, and really got a lot out of spending time with him. His passing a few years ago was definitely a loss for beer enthusiasts worldwide.
What is your opinion of Japanese craft beer? First, how has the quality improved over the years? What is missing from the scene? What is exciting about it?
These days, a simple visit to Beer Club Popeye Ryogoku (or other good craft beer bars– there are many now) is proof that there are quite a number of good craft beers being brewed in Japan. As I said earlier, the first five years of craft beer in Japan resulted in only a few decent brews, while the majority was not very good. Now, the situation has reversed, and you will usually get a good beer, sometimes a great beer, and only in a few cases a bad beer. What is missing from the scene is a truly good pro-beer consumer organization, and until The Japan Beer Times, there was no publication that championed the beer cause except for the short-lived The Beer & Pub magazine put out by Hiroyuki Fujiwara, who I believe is Japan’s best and most interesting beer writer.
What do you see for the future of craft beer in general, and specifically Japanese craft beer?
Craft beer will continue to get more extreme, with stronger beers of higher alcohol levels. These are being added to the overall base of beers that continue to increase in variety, meaning that there are beers for increasingly diverse tastes. For Japan, I expect the craft industry to follow US and European trends, and hope that there will be some relief for the consumer in terms of lower taxes on beer. What I expect in Japan is that large manufacturers will begin brewing craft beer-like products at marginally higher prices to reflect increased demand for craft beer products. The exciting thing now is the opening of very good craft beer places in Tokyo, such as the new Faucets in Shibuya, which also serves surprisingly good food along with a great selection of beer. Finally, the continued success of this publication gives me every reason for optimism, and I hope JBT will draw the attention of a larger number of “ordinary” people who are taking a stronger interest in the beer they drink. It is certainly a noble cause.
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.
