BREWING WITH FRIENDS - BLACK TIDE BREWING
We’re at the 3 week mark until our 10th anniversary celebration. I (Paul) am happy to write that all the collabs with all of the attendees, minus 1, has been completed. Standing between us and a great time at the festival is just the final stretch of organisation + praying to Mother Nature that we get a day of wonderful sunshine.
In today’s post, I’d like to talk about our collab with Black Tide Brewing (herein BTB).
BTB first opened their doors in 2020. Indeed, they’re going to be holding 5th anniversary festival between 5/31 ~ 6/7 across 5 cities in Japan - including Kyoto.
Prior to opening, BTB had envisioned kegging all their beer and slowly transitioning to cans as they could dial in their recipes and better understand demand for their beers and therefore how much they needed to brew. As I have written in numerous other blogs about breweries, Corona had different plans. In BTB’s case, Corona meant that kegging was put on hold and from their first batch, they were canning 100% of their beer. Also, without any kind of established foothold in the market, they decided to focus on brewing 1-offs. Lastly, they decided to setup their brewery in Kessenuma, a town in Miyagi prefecture that was devastated by the impact of March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the government of Japan helped setup a fund for businesses to establish in regions that were devastated by the events of 3/11. Heeding the call was a group of people who thought it would be a good opportunity to setup a craft brewery in the region:
- Tomoyoshi Sen (千倫義) – President of Product of Time (プロダクトオブタイムグループ) (they built and manage a bunch of restaurants/izakaya/craft beer bars in Japan)
- Akihiko Sugawara (菅原 昭彦) – President of Otokoyama (男山株式会社) (a Kesennuma sake brewery established in the mid 19th century)
- Tajima, Nobuhiro (田嶋 伸浩) – Owner of Transporter Magazine (CRAFTBEERMAGAZINE TRANSPORTER - a magazine dedicated to covering the craft beer industry in Japan)
They combined their efforts into raising money for the brewery and building a team that could help execute their vision. They first knew they needed to look for a brewer – cue James Watney.
James had been working in Portland, Oregon, as a chemist. He was also an avid home brewer with 13 years of experience. He was looking for a change of pace from his corporate job and saw an opportunity to do something meaningful and applied to the executive team. James became the first partner who would be the ‘boots on the ground’ of BTB.
With their brewery secured, the team knew they needed another individual to help James with operations. Despite having a cushy job at Honda R&D (Honda Motor’s research arm), Kazuya Tanji (丹治和也) saw the hiring post for BTB and immediately dropped everything he was doing and got on a night bus down to Tokyo to meet the team behind the brewery. Tanji-san’s passion came through and he was the second partner brought on.
Adopting the mantra, “Brewed with Pride in Kensennuma”, Black Tide set about to making good beer.
Fast forward 5 years and BTB is now breaking ground on a second brewery in the city. Construction on the building should finish early next year. Meanwhile, they’ve also recently opened a dedicated taproom in Sendai.
Despite how busy they were, both BTB and KBC were happy at a chance to do a collab with one another as we became good friends these past 2 years after visiting hop farmers in the US and New Zealand. Indeed, when thinking of what to brew, we harked back to our time in America last September when we were both at hop harvest and James was lamenting how underappreciated Crystal, a classic American hop, was. It was a hop that was created in the 80s to be a substitute for German noble hops, hops that are known for their floral and herbal characteristics that work well in lagers. On KBC’s side, we would brew a classic West Coast style IPA that centered around Crystal and other classic American “C” hops (ie. Columbus, Centennial and Citra). Crystal is known for its floral and piney notes with accompanying hints of cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper. This was then combined with the citrus, floral and tropical character from the accompanying C hops.
As for BTB’s brew, James wanted to use KBC’s house yeast as he relished the idea of making something Belgian. Continuing the theme of hops we picked out together on our travels, James suggested he centre his beer around Riwaka, a NZ hop known its punchy passionfruit and citrus character that both breweries adore. He wanted to take it one step further and use ‘Eggers Special”, a Riwaka derivative that is grown by our friends, Eggers Hops. In Sep 2024, BTB and KBC were the first 2 breweries to bring Eggers hops into Japan and Eggers Special in 2024 was late-harvested crop that explodes with additional notes of pineapple and bright lime peel.
We’re really happy with how our side of the beer turned out. It’s currently on sale and will start shipping out early next week. For those that are coming to our 10-year festival, we’ll also be pouring there, too.
As for BTB’s side of the beer, it’s still undergoing fermentation but James has assured us that he’s going to be bringing that beer to put on tap for the festival ahead of their wide release.
