It’s fair to say that Shogo Tokami, owner and head brewer of Paint Palette Brewing, feels - and will always feel - like one of our own. He was one of our first ever employees, having joined in early 2017, and was one of our longest, not to mention one of our most influential members.
In between his two tenures at KBC, Shogo also spent 2 years over at Heretic Brewing in California, working under brewing legend Jamil Zainasheff, learning and honing his art in order to make himself the brewer he is today. After much hardship and delay in getting set up, he was finally ready to make a beer together, which we brewed this last week, and which will be released right at the end of this year.
Collaborations for us are often a mutual learning opportunity, or the chance to get crazy and experimental. Having just released his first beer in late August, and having started his taproom in October, we also wanted to catch up with Shogo, and see how his first couple of months of brewing have been. It’s been interesting hearing from him: Shogo released Paint Palette’s first beer just over 10 years from our very first release.
10 years is a long time in craft beer
We had one experience of starting up a brewery in 2015. How was it for him, doing so a decade later in 2025? We asked him about his experience so far.
“It's taking time”, Shogo shared honestly. When Kyoto Brewing started in 2015, we did exactly the same thing we recommended to Shogo. When going to get “iraisho” documents - request forms indicating intent to purchase, a requirement in order to show demand for the purpose of the license - we recommended that he use this as an opportunity to introduce himself to bars and restaurants. When we launched our brewery in 2015, we went around and told our story, of 3 friends who met in Aomori, and our brewer who had gained experience at Lost Abbey/Port Brewing in America, and Shiga Kogen in Nagano. With only 4 breweries opening in 2015, including brew pubs, word of mouth spread from the bars we visited to their friends’ bars.
We were terrified that our brew house was too big for a new brewery, and selling through our beer would be a nightmare, but we needn’t have worried. The industry was still small, but very well connected, and there were so few breweries opening that when one opened with a young new brewer with experience in two respected breweries, we sold out in days. And with our limited number of tanks, that only escalated, right up to a point where many of our beers sold out within minutes of going on sale.
In 2025, there are a couple of hundred breweries opening in Japan each year. The number of new bars is also increasing, but not keeping up with the pace of the makers. While Shogo has a lot of interest, and many of the bars he made connections with were keen to try his beer, it’s unlikely that any new brewery opening will sell out of large batches in minutes nowadays.
But that’s not his plan, and he never believed that what we did in 2015 could be repeated in 2025. "My target market is people who come to our onsen, and who know what craft beer is but haven’t had a lot of chance to experience it. I believed when starting that it was the time to focus on a blue ocean, not a red ocean, looking towards a market away from competing with the other 1000+ breweries all looking towards Tokyo”.
Building a New Community in an Adopted Home
Shogo, ironically, was born and raised in Tokyo, but it is his new home of Kobe that holds his attention. “Kobe is a town where people like their own city a lot”, he says. Shogo tells us that Kobe is a city where the beer bars and restaurants really look to work together to support one another. They try to organise lots of events and lots of different networking opportunity. Kobe Night Picnic is an event where locals are encouraged to get together, where local bars and restaurants take part and open up stalls, giving those locals at the event get a chance to meet them, and potentially turning them into local regulars.
Shogo believes that this local market is his future, but he isn’t naive, and understands that this is a long race. “It’s going to take a while for craft beer to be properly known in Kobe", he believes. “Kobe is a town where bars and restaurants have these strong connections with one another and are mutually supportive, but most of the beer bars are relatively new, and don’t yet have those connections and the network.”
The Social Lubricant
One area that our thoughts and feelings overlap heavily with Shogo’s is his mentality towards beer, and its ability to create connections. He felt this right from his first experience with beer in Seattle over 10 years ago. There is something about the atmosphere that beer creates that draws people together in a way that no other drink does. This was an image that Shogo wanted to “paint” when he created his company, and this is what inspired him to choose the name Paint Palette, using the different ingredients that make up beer, and the sheer variety of hops, malts, yeast and other adjuncts that can now be used in modern beer, as the different colours on his “palette”.
Having started for a few months now, and seeing the change in the market in the US, Shogo is very aware of the current challenges, and those ahead. When asked what he saw the future of craft beer as being, he said that he believe the term “craft beer” itself needs to eventually disappear. Craft beer is niche, and something that is enjoyed in craft beer bars. As great as these venues are, and as important as they will continue to be to this industry, real quality local beer is something that needs to be enjoyed more and more in regular bars and restaurants. Without this, it becomes very hard to move it into the mainstream. Imagine if you had to go to a wine bar to enjoy wine? It would have its audience, but it would be very limited.
Shogo believes that accessibility is important, as is affordability. The terminology of “craft beer” is an issue because of association, and the hurdle that people perceive in its approachability. Other terms have been used in the past - “ji-biiru” being the main one – but “ji-biiru” also has baggage, as people associate the term with when the beer licensing rules were relaxed in the mid-90s, and many onsen towns had their own “ji-biiru”, the quality of which could be very varied. Nowadays “ji-biiru” is seen as quite old-school by a certain audience, while craft beer is seen as both specialist and expensive. For Shogo, the future is making beer into a proud local enterprise.
Quality First
And quality is central to this. For each poorly made beer that is released, someone will try their first “craft beer” and believe it is not only expensive, but also not delicious. Every beer fan remembers the first time they experienced something different, exciting and delicious, and helping more people to have the chance to gain this experience is central to craft beer’s growth, increasing its affordability, and in doing so securing a long-term future for it.
It’ll be fascinating to see where we all are in another 10 years. Shogo is doing his bit for this one customer at a time at Awa Awa in Kobe, and working more broadly to make quality local and independent beer a part of the culture in his adopted city. We know from experience that the road is long, but craft beer really does bring something unique. It connects people in a special way, and we can’t wait to see him helping to turn Kobe into a craft beer loving community!
For more information on Paint Palette, check out paintpalette.com
Look out for our collaboration brews, one which will be shared from our side in late December, and our brew over at Paint Palette that will be released in early January.
