Change in brew philosophy - Part1 - what KBC2.0 means

For the past few months, we’ve had a few beers released with the monicker “KBC2.0” coupled with the fox head appended to the back of our labels.

These include (up through to September)

• Aratamemashite series - 2 beers
• Donburako series - 2 beers - NZ Hop: Peacharine - Showcase (Jul)
• Irotoridori series - 3 beers - NZ Hop: Motueka -Showcase (Aug/Sep)
• Sharaku series - 2 beers - English-style beer - Showcase (to be released soon）

For us, the beers with this mark are the quickest and easiest way to encapsulate how we are trying to shift KBC's vision. In the keg version, this is solely represented with the suds before you. In the can version, this is also represented by the change in art direction of the label (which we'll talk about in an upcoming separate article).

It should also be noted that KBC2.0 beers are beers that sit outside of our already established series (Kimagure, Mari-family, etc) of beers.

A few months ago, in a separate blog, we loosely referenced what our intent was with KBC2.0. Now, with a few months under our belt, we're now doing an public audit of sorts. Over the course of 4 articles, we'll be going into a little more specific detail as to the what and why of KBC2.0. We'll also be talking about how this has been spilling over into other things that have been happening at KBC. We'll then transition to what you can expect over following months; culminating with our 10 year anniversary in May 2025.

Beer releases - big bang

In Japan, because most of the ingredients that we need to make beer are imported from different parts of the world, we have to carefully plan the beers we want to brew well in advance. As such, when we originally planned our 2024 beers, it was done in back in 2023.

Fast forward to when James, our new head brewer, came in the first half of 2024. We made the risky decision to blow up half of our beer calendar.

Why? The reason was twofold:

1. Due to Corona and then focusing on the transition with Chris’ departure, collabs with other breweries had to take a backseat for a few years.
2. Take a look at what KBC/James wanted to do together and slowly ramp up production of those types of beers.

In the case of collabs, we used to use them as a vehicle to try/learn new things and also to catch-up with our fellow peers in the industry (domestic and overseas). The desire was to immediately re-establish collabs and do lots of them.The goal was to catch-up with old and new friends alike while also introducing James to the some of the people who help shape Japan craft beer scene.

【2024 Collabs】

1. West Coast Brewery -「黄金比」(Golden Ratio) - 2 beers
2. Godspeed Brewery ＆ Kobo Brewing -「黙々人」(Mokumoku　Jin)
3. Y.Market -「自我事変」(Egotistic Dilemma)
4. Zakkoku Koubou - 「正統派」(Orthodox)・「異端派」(Unorthodox)
5. (new) Two Rabbits - 「未定」
6. (6 more collabs planned in 2024 alone)

As for the beers that KBC would make outside of collabs, while we wanted James to have a gradual growing influence on tinkering with existing recipes and creating new ones within existing series; we wanted to create a simple way that enabled us to ignore everything already established and regain some greater freedom of control.The idea was that with 9 years under our belt, there were certain things that we wanted to focus on for awhile.

This could be largely represented in 3 ways:

1. Put greater emphasis on how we source our materials to make beers
2. In thinking about our beers from a flavour wheel perspective (ex: citrus, stone fruits, tropical, etc), offer more specific flavour combos with more varied levels of impact
3. Take bigger risks with our beers and fail forward

With the above in mind, KBC2.0 was born.

Ingredients - blank slate

James’ entire brewing career to date has taken place in the US, a country that has access to a huge assortment of ingredients (both domestically grown and from elsewhere). Whether we like to admit it or not, from a brewery's perspective, the reality is that Japan only has access to a fraction of what is available to you in the US, and even then, with the need to haul things across oceans, the quality/character of the ingredients that do arrive can be different than what was experienced at the source.

With the above in mind, KBC decided, as an example, to reach out to all the vendors across Japan who help import malt. We then asked for a wide variety of samples to arrive and over the course of a day, the entire brew team + co-founders blind tested the malt we wanted. We started first with base malt, the underlying backbone to malty flavour, colour and body/mouthfeel characteristics of a beer.We then proceeded through the specialty malts, grains that have a big impact on flavour and colour. Only after the blind taste happen did we then unveil the malster, who imports it, and the challenges associated with using those malts.

Unfortunately, given the way the import process of malts works in the country, we’re somewhat hamstrung on our ability to immediately switch to all our desired malt choices. But starting with 2.0 beers, we've been changing things where we can. From Jan 2025, we can finally start making bigger switches and eventually overhaul all of our beers.

Ingredients - go to the source

We rely a great deal on the various trade houses (商社) to bring ingredients into the country. But sometimes, when selecting delicate/fickle ingredients like hops into the country, the goal of the trade house might be to secure an average expectation of what the hop smells/tastes like because they need to then provide that hop to so many different breweries. Or, they have to cater their hop selection to the 1-3 customers that buy the largest amounts of that hop varietal.

As an example, Mosaic is a very popular hop nowadays. When talking about the aroma/flavour profile, people attribute blueberry, melon, tropical, dank and grassy notes to them. Some brewers might prefer stronger blueberry character. Others might prefer greater amount of tropical notes. Unfortunately, depending upon how much of that hop you buy and via who, your might have lots of choice in getting what you want or none at all.

With that in mind, we started to diversify where and who we source our hops from and actually went to where the hops are growing so that we can ideally select the hops that we want to put into the beer we make. For some hops, we will work continue to work with the trade houses. For others, we have decided to import them directly into the country ourselves.

A few our beers have already started to use some of these different hops. As we move into October, KBC2.0 beers featuring New Zealand hops will start to feature hops that we personally selected. From Mar 2025, beers featuring selected US hops will star to appear on shelves. We look forward to highlighting that in our beers moving forward.

Closing for now

We’ll leave you here for now. In our next article we’ll follow-up with the change in art direction of our beers. Beyond that, we’ll then return to how we’re continuing to evolve our beer program.