Steam Brew Day at Loco Brewery

So we brewed the Sakura Steam at Loco Brewery on Saturday August 25th and the beer is in the fermenter and the yeast is doing its thing. It was a pretty long day. I left home at 7 am and arrived back at 10 pm. In between I got to hang out in a brewery for the day and pretend I was being useful. It was hot outside, but it was hotter in the brewery. And steamier. Much steamier. Certainly showed the non-glamorous side of brewing. Rather than give a long detailed gory account, I think I'll just post a few pictures to commemorate the occasion.


Our chief brewer for the day, Loco Brewery's Momoyo Nittoh.






Visiting Aussie home brewer, Andrew Walsh (berapnopod) and Momoyo-san discussing tactics.






Momoyo-san stirring the mash.







Momoyo-san and brew lackey (aka her husband Koh-ichi) discussing the gravity of a sample in relation to whether it is yet time to stop the sparge.





The boil is underway. It is a steam heated mash tun/boiler.










Nerdy home brewer whose recipe was being brewed making one of the six hop additions. (Hops used were Northern Brewer, Amarillo and a touch of Cascade.)



Shit, you have to work?

That there is the lauter tank being cleared.






Yay, there goes the yeast!!
(Not the regular San Francisco Lager either, folks. Lager, yes, but think Germany.)


Let's hope we have something worth drinking in five or six weeks time.

Cervesa Japonica brews...

Sorry, it has been a long time between drinks, what with marathon training and a few other things crowding out my ability to do justice to ferreting out and presenting information about Japan craft beer.

This is just a quick post to highlight the fact that I will be finally getting to brew my Yokozuna (Grand Champion) beer at Loco Brewery in Chiba this coming Saturday (8/25).

The background for this dates back to when my California Common (Sakura Steam) won the Best of Show at the 2006 WanCup homebrewing competition. The first prize included getting a 5 HL batch of the recipe made at Loco Brewery, of which I get to keep sixty 345 mL bottles. I'll try to get a few photographs on the day and post about the experience here next week. Looking forward to it immensely.