Brewing with Friends - KBL
We’re just under 1 month from our 10th anniversary celebration. We’ve been feverishly rushing across Japan to ensure all the collabs for the 20 brewery attendees gets completed in time. It really has been a whirlwind tour. It’s been wonderful to catch up with fellow breweries but it’s also been taxing to travel so frequently. As I sit down to write this, we have 3 breweries left to go.
This time, we’d like to talk about our collaboration with Kyoto Beer Lab.
Kyoto Beer Lab (herein KBL) first opened their doors in 2018 and are based in the ‘Gojyo Rakuen’ (literally translated as Gojyo Paradise) area of Kyoto, a district in Kyoto that was once replete with brothels and Yakuza but has undergone a massive gentrification effort by the city over the past two decades (truth be told, I, Paul, have been living in this district for 9 years and have a huge soft spot for it).
Spearheading this project was co-founder team Tom Ainsworth and Hidekazu Muragishi. Muragishi-san, via his NPO, was working with a crew of volunteers to help restore old houses （町家古民家を改修） in the Wazuka region of Kyoto prefecture. Through getting to know the locals, a lot of whom were tea farmers, he wanted to find a way to get Wazuka tea introduced to a wider audience and thought beer would be a great way to do so. He initially started contract brewing his beers out of Kiuchu Brewery and their pilot system. His first beer was a green tea IPA. He then decided he wanted to get a brewery off the ground and that is when he met Tom. Tom had spent a summer interning at The Grifter, a brewery located in Sydney, and had wanted to move into a full-time brewing position in Japan.
KBL invested in a 200L system that occupied the back-half of their little property. They then setup a taproom in the front-half. The idea was to sell as much of their beer on-site as possible. They expanded the number of flagship tea beers they brewed and they also made a lot of one-offs and brewed across a wide variety of styles. For 2 years, their business model worked and locals and tourists alike flocked to their brewery. Unfortunately Corona blew that business model up and KBL needed to start bottling their beers, and quick. Bottles were manually filled and manually capped. It was a laborious job but it was necessary to try and keep the company afloat during those challenging times.
Thankfully, Corona subsided and KBL’s original location finds itself very busy once again. But that 2-3 year period where the borders were closed and the locals were not keen to drink outside meant that KBL decided to apply for some grant money and get a second location that could function as a production brewery and had proper packaging equipment. Cue KBL Garage, a brewery located just West of the Kyoto Central Wholesale Market that opened in April 2024. Tom and Muragishi-san invested in a 500L system and moved production of all their Wazuka tea beers to that facility. Tom, also, had to expand the brew team. The head brewer at KBL became fellow Australian compatriot Leon. The head brewer at KBL Garage became Ayumi-san.
When talking to Tom and Leon about what beers we wanted to brew at KBL, we decided to look towards Australia as a source of inspiration and because of their small system size, we wanted to take advantage and brew something a little more adventurous than we might at our own brewery. We looked towards the popular Australian desert pavlova, a meringue-based dessert, often topped with cream, nuts and fruit that was named after the famous Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova. We decided to deconstruct the pavlova and the result was we would brew 2 beers there that could be enjoyed on their own but then also be mixed together and be equally enjoyable. We brewed a passionfruit sour ale and a tart pistachio cream ale.
For KBL Garage, when talking to Tom and Ayumi, they wanted to brew a beer using our house Belgian yeast and they wanted to tuck into a lot of the different New Zealand hops that we sourced directly. In the end, we settled on brewing a Hoppy Belgian Strong.
Lastly, for KBC, Ben had done some research on Australian-only herbs and came across Lemon Myrtle, a plant known for its strong, refreshing lemon scent and flavour. As we had pushed for quite a challenge with the 2 beers at KBL, Leon thought it a good idea if we wanted to try and brew a not-so-common style at KBC - the Heimabrygg. Originally a style of beer originating in Norway, the idea is to pick fresh Juniper and infuse the water they use to make the beer. In sticking with tradition, we used juniper but we also used lemon myrtle that both Tom and Leon had muled over all way from Australia. The beer started off pale in colour but as is traditionally done, we did an extended boil of 3 hours (normally, it’s 1 hour). The result is that the wort became concentrated (a lot of the water is boiled off) and the extended cooking time means that the wart turns a rich amber colour and a caramel, toffee-like flavour is added to the beer. Norwegian Kviek yeast is then used, specifically from the Voss region and the beer is fermented at a very high temperature, which allows it to impart strong fruity esters. The end result is a malt-forward beer that blends sweet caramel notes and tropical yeast esters with a touch of juniper spice and lemony herbal character.
As crazy as it sounds, we decided to brew all 4 beers at all 3 locations over the course of 3 straight days. It was quite a challenge but thinking back on how far the company has come along and all the new faces on the brew team, I’m really happy with how everything turned out.We can’t wait to share our collab with you. For those in the Kyoto area, please head on over to KBL and try out their sides of the collab.
