BREWING WITH FRIENDS - SAKAMICHI BREWING

We’re just under 1 week away from our 10th anniversary celebration. The brewery is even busier than normal as people scramble to make sure all the small details get worked out and everyone (customers and guests breweries alike) who comes can hopefully enjoy themselves.

In today’s post, I’d like to talk about our collab with Sakamichi Brewing (herein SMB).

SMB, similar to Black Tide, opened up during a very tumultuous period. In SMB’s case, they opened their doors in March 2020. One month later, due to the Corona outbreak, they had to temporarily close their doors given the restriction Tokyo put in place for selling alcohol. Luckily, SMB at that point in time was a 2-man operation with co-founders Matthew and Daniel. Aside from themselves, they didn’t have to worry about too much overhead. However, they realised their plans had to change.

The original plan was a build a brewery and a taproom together. However, the tax office doesn’t want to give you a beer license unless you have funding and the bank doesn’t want to give you funding unless you have a license. With that dilemma, Matthew and Daniel decided to first open a taproom and brew their beer at other small scale breweries around the country. They would then sell that beer plus the beer of those places that helped them on their guest taps. The money they made would then go towards getting their own brewing equipment. 

In Matthew’s case, prior to getting SMB off the ground, he was working at Baird Beer in Shuzenji, Shizuoka. During that time, Chris Poel, who had been head brewer for many years, made the decision to get his own brewery: Shiokaze BrewLab. Shiokaze had adopted a similar model of contract brewing and therefore was able to introduce Matthew to breweries that were open to helping other brewers.

With each wave of Corona, the stop and restart nature of the business at that time meant that their earnings were erratic. It also meant that the timeline they had for getting their own equipment slid further from their grasp. Thankfully, the local bank that they had been talking to throughout this entire time was acutely aware of how much businesses were hurting in this sector and were therefore pleasantly surprised at SBM’s growing earnings.

It took a little bit of time but in 2022, SMB finally got their chance at a loan and purchased a 500-litre brewhouse. By the end of that year, in Dec 2022, they brewed their first in-house batch of beer. Despite it taking over 2.5 years to brew their first in-house beer, they were able to build a strong, local following.

SMB is a 5 minute walk south from Tachikawa station. The station is located 45 minutes West of Tokyo station via rapid express and is therefore somewhat removed from what someone might consider the main “Tokyo core”. That being said, it is the biggest station in West Tokyo and the flow of commuters coming through the station during rush hour is astounding. SMB was one of the few establishments in Tachikawa serving craft beer to locals and in Nov 2024, they expanded their presence and opened a new taproom on the north side of the station. In Feb of this year, as “thanks” for their service to the community, they were recognised by the city and received award (「輝く個店」賞 ). 

Despite how busy the SMB boys were, both sides were happy to sit down and finally do a collab together as similar to Black Tide, we became friends with SMB via our trips to New Zealand for hop selection over the past 2 years.

When it came time to discuss beer style, we decided that a Radler might be apt give Matthew and Daniel’s shared love of cycling (specifically touring) - it’s actually how they came to know one another. Also, on KBC’s side, given the flat terrain of Kyoto, over 95% of the company commutes to work via bicycle.

The Radler was created in early 20th century in Germany. On a hot summer day there was an innkeeper who soon found himself inundated by 13,000 cyclists due to a recently opened trail that he created from Munich to his tavern. In fear of running out of their house pilsner, he started blending it with lemon soda he had on hand in order to be able to supply beer to all the cyclists. The beer was a hit and was then referred to going forward as a “Radler”, which translates as cyclist in German.

Taking the Radler theme, Matthew then proposed we do a red and yellow radler as a symbol of the Tour de France, the oldest and most prestigious multi-stage cycling race in the world. The last place position individual on any given stage is given the title “Lantern Rouge”, which translates in English to “red lantern”. The person who is currently in the lead standing gets to wear the “Maillot Jaune” (ie. Yellow jersey).

In KBC’s case, to impart redness to the beer, we used ruby red grapefruit puree. The grapefruit is traditionally harder to grow but is much sweeter than its regular cousin. For SMB, they looked towards Setouchi lemon puree to give it a nice kick of acidity and a huge hit of lemon aroma.

Sakamichi’s beer is almost consumed 100% in-house (keg only); however, both sides of the collaboration will be available at the festival.