BREWING WITH FRIENDS - Yatsugatake Brewery Touchdown
The New Frontier
Located in the foothills of the Akaishi Mountains, otherwise known as the Southern Alps, Yatsugatake “Touchdown” Brewery must have one of the most picturesque brewery settings in Japan.
We’ll not deny that we were largely unfamiliar with Kiyosato, a town 1200m above sea level, until we went over there to collaborate with them on one of 3 beers being prepared for Keyaki Spring Beer Festival, Saitama’s huge 5 day craft beer extravaganza.
“There’s nothing here!” said head brewer Hiromichi “Tentsu” Miyashita when he picked us up from a nearby station. It certainly is an isolated location, but that hasn’t stopped the Rock restaurant, a part of the Moeginomura European-inspired village, being a huge success. The Moegi Village is a laid-back hotel and resort, and the Yatsugatake Touchdown Brewery is a part of that.
The town itself has only a little over 100 years of history, and we were learning as we were going along. Developed in the early 20th century as people looked for more space to inhabit, the areas development sped up following the arrival of train line access in 1933, and an American missionary named Paul Rusch, who had originally come to Japan to help after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1925. He helped to develop the Kiyosato area, with the starting of a dairy farming and vegetable plantation that still forms the basis of local agriculture to this day, and also introduced American Football, thus the name Yatsugatake “Touchdown” Brewery.
Touching Down with Tentsu-san
The brewery, visible within the heart of the restaurant, also looks out on to the restaurant, and during our brew we watched in amazement as the enormous restaurant – big for even a major city – filled up right as doors open, a huge line from the door towards the car park.
Tentsu-san is without doubt one of the most recognisable faces in Japan’s craft beer industry. With a personality as colourful as his flamboyant wardrobe, he spent a full career as the head brewer of another Yamanashi brewery, Fujizakura Heights Beer. Last year, he took on this new challenge, stepping into the role of head brewer here, and bringing along with it his immense knowledge of German styles.
The Master Becomes the Student
Despite dedicating his whole career to mastering the art of German beers, Tentsu-san still loves to learn and try new things. We have talked about the idea of someday collaborating with him for years, and once it was decided that we would share a booth together at this year’s Keyaki, he almost immediately told us that he would like to use our company’s house Belgian yeast strain. This became an honour for us when he subsequently told us that it would be his first time ever using Belgian yeast.
We decided on making a Belgian Wit but, rather than just doing it all KBC-style, we wanted to impart a couple of elements of Yatsugatake in there as well, though. One was a given, considering their German brewhouse is capable of step mashing, the process of gradually increasing the mash temperature through a series of rests, activating specific enzymes that help to break down different complex sugars in the malt. Our system does not have such flash features! The other element was the impartation of Kuromoji, a type of domestic bush, the wood of which has spice and citrus characteristics – a uniquely Japanese alternative to the orange peel and coriander seed traditionally used in this classic style.
So, if doing that on their side, what did we want to do on our side? Tentsu-san is one of the best lager brewers in Japan, but his weizens have always been especially popular, with his ability to bring out the banana and clove in a way second to none. We have made a few weizens in the past, but have never really made one that expresses these esters and phenols as intensely as Tentsu-san's, and so we really wanted to give that a go. At the same time, we wanted to play around with another style that Tentsu-san has been one of the creators of here: the “New England Weizen”. Inspired by the hazy IPA movement, and combining the hefty hop load with the fruity characters of the years. We decided, therefore, to make two brews, one classic German-style weizen and another New England weizen.
But how would we recreate the “step mash” technique that Yatsugatake can do given that our mash tun cannot heat the wort? Our head brewer, James, came up with a solution, and decided that he would recirculate through our kettle, increasing the temperature and then resting at a number of steps to attempt to recreate the results. We then used Tentsu-san's technique of a double fermentation in order to firstly stress the yeast and bring out the clove-like phenols, and subsequently give a gentler and cleaner secondary fermentation for the banana notes.
We did two almost identical brews, but for the second one went for a hop load that was partly inspired by Yatsugatake’s way of creating New England weizens, and our own hop regiment for hoppier Belgian beers to create something that would add just enough of a KBC twist on a Tentsu-san style brew. In the spirit of the location of the brewery in the snowy hills, we went for Heigh-Ho for the classic Weizen, and Ya-ho for the New England-inspired version.
So when can you drink these 3 brews?
The best answer is to come to Keyaki! Keyaki Spring Beer Festival 2025 takes place this upcoming week, from Wed (May 28th) to Sun (June 1st ) at Saitama Shintoshin’s Keyaki Hiroba, and we will be sharing the same tent as Yatsugatake, serving both collaborations brewed on our side, and with Yatsugatake serving the collaboration we made in their Yamanashi brewery.
For those in Kyoto, we will also be serving the beers this weekend at our taproom from Fri (30th May) to Sun (1st June), and the cans of Heigh Ho go on sale online from 27th May, with Ya-Ho going on sale on 31st May, with shipping happening from May 30th and June 3rd respectively.
